


Genie in a Bottle

by thepopeisdope



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angry Sex, Bottom Dean, Dean/Cas Pinefest 2018, Genie Castiel, Historian Dean Winchester, M/M, Oblivious Dean Winchester, Translator Dean winchester, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, relationship drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 04:28:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14128077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepopeisdope/pseuds/thepopeisdope
Summary: When Dean finds (okay, steals) a bottle containing a strange, glowing blue substance, he does so thinking it's a cool novelty, at best. It didn't exactly cross his mind that the substance might be a living being, let alone a grumpy, sarcastic, perpetually-underdressed genie waiting for a new master. But now that he has a bona fide genie at his disposal, well-what better chance will he have to help things along with Lisa?Except, things don't always go as expected, relationships are complicated, magic is never the solution, and sometimes the person you want isn't the person you need.





	Genie in a Bottle

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my god, I can't believe I'm finally posting this fic. I came up with the initial idea for it about... two years ago? I think? I loved it then and I love it now; I'm so happy with the way it came out, and I hope you guys like it, too. <3 
> 
> Written for the deancaspinefest 2018 (!), with incredible art by Aceriee! (Seriously, it's incredible. Like. Damn.) Everything is embedded into the fic, but if you want to admire it on its own, the art is available on [ AO3 here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14056458), and [tumblr here](https://missaceriee.tumblr.com/tagged/pinefest2018). Give it lots of love! 
> 
> Beta'd by [saltnhalo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltnhalo/pseuds/saltnhalo). Title from the Christina Aguilera song by the same name. 
> 
> Enjoy. <3

 

A cloud of dust erupts out of the crate when the lid separates from the rest of it, seemingly having worked itself into every possible crack in the wood. Sure, that’s sort of to be expected when a box has been sitting in a storage locker for at _least_ three decades, but that doesn’t make Dean any happier to be choking on what must be an entire human’s worth of dead skin cells and god-knows-what-else.

But even though he’s consistently kicking himself for not taking an allergy pill before starting this job, he can’t actually be too irritated with it as a whole. There’s something oddly satisfying to be found in the rhythm he’s built up—slide the crowbar in between the side panels and the lid, leverage it open (while trying and mostly failing to not inhale at the same time), then unpack and sort the contents. It’s not bad work overall, especially for the pay he’s getting.

Of course, he’d tried to volunteer to do it _without_ pay; Dr. Visyak—or _Ellie_ , as he’s been told to call her, though he tends not to if he can avoid it because he knows her as a college professor, first and foremost—insisted, however, that even if he doesn’t mind the work, it is, in fact, work.

“As long as I don’t have to clean that mess out myself,” Dr. Visyak had said when they’d discussed it, handing Dean the key to the locker, “I’ll pay whatever it takes, out of gratitude alone.”

Still, though, Dean didn’t agree to do it for the money. Not at all.

He did it because Bobby had been standing over the woman’s shoulder for the entirety of the conversation, giving Dean a hard stare that clearly said, _be nice to my fiancée or I’ll both write you out of my will and take everything you’ve ever loved down in flames with me when I die_.

Or something like that. Dean’s never been the best at reading faces. But regardless, it was a face that highly encouraged cooperation, and that’s what really matters.

And that’s how Dean landed himself here, in this musty old lockup, crowbar in hand and a steadily-growing pile of mystery knick-knacks at his back.

_They are not_ knick-knacks, he automatically hears in his mind, even the memory of Dr. Visyak’s trademark, withering stare enough to make him wince. _They are artifacts, Dean. They must be treated with care and respect, or else you may be harmed_.

Self-chastised or not, Dean scoffs a bit at that. He’s pulled some weird things out of these crates so far, sure, but nothing that would warrant being _harmed_. It’s all old and dusty and, quite frankly, none of it even holds Dean’s attention long enough for it to have the _chance_ to harm him. He’s already gone through at least two-thirds of Visyak’s crates, and most of his findings have consisted of stones with random old symbols carved into their surfaces, or boxes with impenetrable sets of locks on them and a small note describing their contents. And really, a locked box labeled “rabbit’s foot”? Definitely not going to hurt him.

Dr. Visyak would say otherwise, Dean is sure, but he’s also sure of his own abilities. He didn’t survive this long in the world by trusting blindly, or by being a total dumbshit. If something in one of these crates is sporting anything even resembling a _don’t touch_ warning—locked boxes definitely included—Dean is going to be damn sure he doesn’t touch, whether he believes in the superstitious aspect or not.

Better safe than sorry, after all.

Dean breaks momentarily in his work to take a few long drinks from his water bottle and blow his nose, but dives back into his work almost immediately. The next crate turns out much the same as the last half dozen, with contents consisting of engraved rocks, some wood carvings, an unrecognizable lump of metal. It all gets sorted and inventoried appropriately, and then it’s onto the next container to repeat the process.

When the dust explosion from the next crate settles and he gets a look at its contents, all Dean can say is, “Huh.”

In the center of the crate, nestled in an absurd amount of hay and wood shavings, is a single, glass bottle.

Normally, that alone would be enough to have Dean stopping and questioning Dr. Visyak’s sanity—because even if the bottle is kinda pretty with its delicate shaping, why she would store such a thing is beyond him—but he drops down to his knees to investigate because the bottle is… glowing? He leans in closer, squinting into the crate, and…

Yep. Definitely glowing. There’s a bright blue _something_ in the bottle’s center, pulsing in a soft rhythm that almost aligns with the tempo of Dean’s breathing.

He’s reaching for the bottle before he can stop himself, careful not to grip the delicate-looking glass too hard. He gingerly lifts it out of the crate and brings it nearer to his face, peering at the light within and trying to figure out what the hell it is. His inspection doesn’t give him any answers, though; there’s no power source, no bulb, no strange, science experiment-looking substances—just the little ball of light, hovering there without a care in the world.

As Dean holds it, the light’s rhythmic pulses shift slightly in their tempo until, as far as Dean can tell, it actually _is_ swelling in time with his lungs. Dean can feel it in his fingertips. Each pulse sends a tiny bit of static into the pads of his fingers, making them tingle to the bone. Instead of dissuading him, though, the itch he feels to _touch_ and _feel_ and _hold_ only grows stronger. He wants to wrap his whole hand around the glass, let that small tingle consume him.

He wants to open it.

The urge hits him so strongly, so suddenly, that it startles him into dropping the bottle back into the crate. It lands gently in the wood shavings, but Dean still winces, regret coursing through him.

_So much for being careful with everything, you goddamn wimp_.

Still kicking himself internally, Dean peers back into the crate. The bottle is unharmed, for what good that does his wounded ego. Getting spooked by his own emotional reaction is flat-out pathetic, even if the thing causing that reaction is probably some crazy, mystical voodoo potion like the ones his buddy Benny often jokes about being common back in his hometown of Middle-Of-The-Bayou, Louisiana.

Which isn’t exactly a comparison that comforts him, but whatever.

On the bright side, he doubts that one of Dr. Visyak’s most prized possessions is bottled Cajun hoodoo. Or. He hopes it’s not.

Cajun hoodoo or not, though, the bottle still calls to him. He still wants to open it, or at the very least, study it. Or maybe put it in a drawer in his bedroom to stare at when he needs a pick-me-up. Any option would work, really.

So…

Dr. Visyak won’t notice one item missing from all of these boxes, right? Not when she doesn’t know how many there are or what’s in them to begin with, as Dean reasons. So if one, unlabeled glass bottle ends up going home in the pocket of his jacket…

Well. No one has to know.

He strips off his outer flannel and uses it to pick the bottle back out of the crate, then carefully wraps the glass in the soft material. There’s a niggling feeling in the back of his mind that he shouldn’t touch the bottle with his bare hands any more than he already has. Once the bottle is tucked away, Dean continues working as if it never happened, trying to pretend that the new speed behind his movements is just a part of his motivation to be done, not his need to go home and investigate the bottled light.

It’s not very convincing.

 

 

The bottle, after enduring an agonizingly delicate transport back to Dean’s apartment, looks rather innocuous sitting on his coffee table. The little ball of light in the center, at least, is still as weird looking as ever. Oddly enough, it never moved more than a few centimeters in any direction, despite how much the bottle shifted around during the drive.

To say that Dean is beginning to regret bringing it home would be an understatement.

Cajun hoodoo. For sure.

Just as it had when he unboxed it in Visyak’s storage locker, the bottle calls to Dean. He wants nothing more than to touch it, to pull out the stopper and get at the light beating within—still a match to his breathing, no matter how much he tries to alter the pattern of it. It’s like it’s watching him. Observing.

Unable to resist the temptation entirely, Dean stretches out a hand and touches the tip of his index finger to the side of the bottle. The single touch warms his whole body, and sends a shiver down his spine.

When his cell phone starts to ring a few seconds later, Dean nearly jumps out of his skin. He withdraws so forcefully that the bottle is left rocking in place, and for a single, agonizing moment, he’s gripped with fear, dreading seeing it fall.

And then it steadies, and he sighs in relief.

It isn’t until his phone stops ringing that Dean remembers that it even went off in the first place. He wrestles it out of his pocket with fumbling fingers, managing to unlock the screen just as it starts to ring again. He turns his back on the coffee table as he answers so that he can give the call his undivided attention.

“Hello?”

“Dean!” Dr. Visyak greets, cheerful as ever, and _damnit_ , why the _hell_ didn’t Dean check who was calling before he answered. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I? I didn’t hear from you this afternoon, I wanted to make sure that everything went okay, with the storage locker.”

Dean swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. _She knows she knows she knows she knows_ —

He’s quiet for a beat too long, he knows, but he can’t help it. He rushes to fill his own silence, stumbling over his own words as he does. “Yeah, yeah, it was good. Fine. Got everything all transferred out of the crates and sorted onto new shelves. You should go check it out, it’s looking pretty good. I’ve got an inventory sheet I can give you next time I see you. Everything’s all there and accounted for.”

He winces as soon as he says that last sentence. _There and accounted for_? Really? Nothing calls suspicion to the fact that he _stole_ like announcing, Yep! Didn’t steal anything!

Visyak, by some miracle Dean is sure he hasn’t earned, doesn’t seem to notice the near-confession. “Wonderful! How about you give me that inventory tonight, and I’ll give you a check for all of your hard work. If you don’t already have plans, would you like to join Bobby and myself for dinner? And Lisa, of course, if she wants to accompany you. She’s always welcome as well.”

Dean blinks, and all at once, he’s extremely aware of where he is—on his living room floor, sitting cross-legged like an idiot—and what he’s doing—nothing, really. Lisa. He hasn’t even talked to her today. Did he talk to her yesterday? He thinks so, but now that he tries to recall their potential conversation, he’s actually not entirely sure.

Shit.

“Dean, honey?”

“Yeah, uh—Sorry, Ellie, I’m still here.” Dean scrambles up from his place on the floor and hurries toward his bedroom, running through plans for the night in his mind. “I’ll have to check with Lis, but I’ll definitely be over for dinner. I’ll text you or Bobby and let you know if you’ll need a fourth plate or not.”

On the other end of the line, Dr. Visyak sounds nothing short of thrilled. “Of course, dear, let us know. I’ll see you in a couple hours.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you. Thanks.” Dean is walking into his bedroom just as the call ends, so once he’s locked the screen on his phone, he tosses it onto his bed and makes a beeline for the shower. He’s not going to see Lisa while he has dust from that nasty old storage locker in his hair, that’s for damn sure.

He washes himself quickly, rushes to towel himself off, and ends up struggling his way into a pair of jeans with damp legs while he fumbles for his phone to shoot a text off to his girlfriend. With any luck, she’ll both be willing to go to Bobby and Ellie’s, and won’t chew him out for springing this on her at the last minute.

He has a feeling the odds aren’t in his favor, though—at least when it comes to the latter part of that.

If Dean were a praying man, now would be the time.

He keeps an anxious eye on his phone as he finishes getting ready, pulling on a shirt and then hastily drying his hair so that he can put a bit of product in it and make it presentable. It’s a rush-job, but by the time he’s stepping into a pair of boots and shrugging on his favorite leather jacket, he thinks he looks pretty damn good.

And to make matters better, Lisa texts him back just as he’s grabbing his wallet and keys. She agrees to let him pick her up on his way to Bobby’s, which he immediately texts back to confirm he’ll do. He sends a message to Dr. Visyak next, and then hurries out the door.

He forgets all about the glass bottle and its strange, glowing contents.

 

 

As it turns out, he was right to worry about dinner.

It starts out just fine; Lisa smiles and presses a lip-glossed kiss to his cheek when he picks her up, which seems to be a great sign, but then she’s quiet, caught in her thoughts and unresponsive to Dean’s attempts at conversation. He tells her some of the basic details about his work at the storage locker, but she just hums in response. He asks about her work, and she gives monosyllabic answers.

It’s worrying, to say the least.

Thankfully, it gets better when they get to Bobby and Ellie’s. _Better_ , at least, in the sense that Lisa is perfectly chatty with their hosts in a way she isn’t with him. Whatever it is that has her pissed, it’s only between her and Dean.

But while Dean is infinitely grateful to not have to air his drama out in front of his pseudo father figure and his fiancée, that still doesn’t bode well for _him_. He struggles to relax as the evening progresses, and eventually, that becomes obvious.

“Dean, honey,” Dr. Visyak— _Ellie_ —coos at one point after they’ve eaten, a hand on his shoulder as she pulls him out of his swirling thoughts, “is everything alright? You didn’t get pricked by some cursed object or another in my storage locker today, did you?”

Dean’s cheeks flush bright red, so much so that even Lisa looks at him oddly. “No! No, I, uh—no. Definitely didn’t, uh… touch anything I shouldn’t have. Everything went fine. No weirdness or anything, I’m just feeling a bit under the weather, is all.”

He sees Lisa roll her eyes at his fumbling, and his mood sinks just a little bit more.

Despite how much he feels like an idiot for once again nearly freaking out over his theft, though, Dean is an expert at finding silver linings in shitty situations. Right now, the fact that Ellie and Lisa fall back into conversation instead of either of them finding reason to grill him is definitely that silver lining.

Even if Bobby does continue to give him an odd look from across the room. Luckily, that’s easy enough to ignore; Bobby may not be blood, but he’s the one who took over in the role of parent to the Winchester kids after John Winchester drove into a semi almost fifteen years previously, and as such, being ignored on occasion is pretty much a natural part of that role. Dean became a pro at it long ago.

And, hell, Bobby does sort of deserve it right now. The way Dean sees it, it’s _his_ fault for raising Dean to be such a shitty thief. Dean knows for a fact that he used to be good at nicking things when he was a kid, riding around in the back seat of his dad’s car as they travelled all across the country for his work and stopping in at convenience stores and gas stations wherever they went. And since Dean clearly remembers stealing candy bars and jars of peanut butter for himself and Sam without feeling a shred of remorse, the only possible explanation is that it was Bobby’s influence which gave him a conscience.

Unless, of course, it’s just this particular item which has guilt rushing through him every time he remembers it. The bottle that he left sitting on his coffee table is innocent enough, even if it’s obviously a touch unnatural in origin. There’s really no reason for Dean to feel as terrible as he does. A glass bottle is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. And it wasn’t even _labeled_ , for god’s sake. How important could it be if it wasn’t labeled?

Almost immediately after he and Lisa had arrived at Bobby and Ellie’s, Ellie had pulled him aside and traded him the inventory he took of the storage locker for a check for his efforts. That inventory, of course, didn’t include the glowing blue bottle. If Ellie somehow notices that it’s missing, it’ll be easy for him to claim that he never saw it. It was just a hunk of decorative glass in an unmarked crate; maybe she misplaced it years ago, who is Dean to say?

He shouldn’t be worrying himself about it as much as he is. There’s no reason for it. Worrying is pointless. Worrying is going to be what gets him _caught_.

“…Right, Dean?”

Dean blinks. “Um—” Lisa’s hand is on his elbow, and on the couch angled perpendicular to the one they’re curled up on together, Ellie and Bobby are staring at him expectantly. And he hasn’t the slightest idea what was asked of him. He wets his lips, eyes sliding toward his girlfriend. “Yeah. Of course. What you said, babe.”

Lisa frowns. She scrutinizes him for a long moment, no doubt taking in his deer-in-headlights look of panic, and then her expression hardens.  “Have you been listening at all?”

Dean rubs his palms over his thighs, hoping to clear up some of the sudden clamminess he feels on the denim of his jeans. “’Course I have, baby. I heard you.” He might not have been paying any attention whatsoever, but he’s been physically present, and that has to count for something, right? He makes an effort to think back to the conversation, combing through his immediate memory in an effort to pluck out the relevant points.

“Yosemite,” is what he ends up coming up with, knowing for a fact that he heard that much mentioned, “with your dad and his wife, I know. Sorry, just, uh—remind me when that is again? Am I going with you for that one?”

In the beat of silence that follows, Bobby grumbles what sounds an awful lot like, “ _Damnit, boy_.” Dean only has a moment to glance at him, though, brow creased with confusion, before Lisa retakes his focus. She’s been staring at him since he spoke, disbelief and infuriation painted in equal measure across her features, but now she stands, her movements jerky as she reaches for her coat.

“I cannot believe you, Dean Winchester,” she hisses. She pulls on her coat, flips her hair over the collar, then turns back on him with an icy glare. “ _I_ am going to Yosemite this weekend for my _brother’s wedding_ , and no, I do not want you to go with me. Not if you can’t listen, because I’ve been talking about this for months. Months, Dean! I’ve known all week that you forgot. So I think I’d prefer to go alone, actually. We can talk about this when I get back.”

Fuck.

There’s a heavy weight in Dean’s stomach as he pushes to his feet. “Lis, wait—”

She cuts him off with a shake of her head, then gives Ellie and Bobby a thin smile. “Thank you for dinner, the two of you have been wonderful company, as always. I’m sorry for making a scene.”

“It’s alright,” Bobby is quick to say. He lays a hand on his fiancée’s shoulder and cuts a sharp glance at Dean. “It’s not your fault.”

Dean can’t stop the sound of disbelief that escapes him. “ _Hey_!”

Lisa’s smile briefly turns a bit more real. “Thank you for understanding, Bobby,” she says. Then, to Dean, “I’ll call a cab, don’t worry about taking me home.”

She grabs her purse and is out the front door before Dean can find the courage to fight for the situation.

Because that’s just how his luck goes.

Dean doesn’t hang around Bobby and Ellie’s for long, after that. Between the disappointed father and the disappointed professor staring him down, dwelling in his shame isn’t fun. He waits just long enough to be sure that Lisa won’t still be waiting for her cab in the driveway, then makes his excuses, thanks Bobby and Ellie for dinner, and scurries out with his tail between his legs.

And if he stops at a bar instead of going straight home so that he can drown his sorrows in alcohol, well. That’s no one’s business but his own.

By the time he’s stumbling his way back into his apartment later that night, he has too much whiskey sloshing through his veins, and not a care in the world about it. He slams his front door shut behind him loud enough that he’s sure everyone on his floor hears it, and although he knows he should probably feel bad about that considering how late it is, he can’t find it in himself to be sorry.

Why does he have to be such a fuck-up?

During his obligatory drinking session, he’d had plenty of time to reflect on the mess he put himself in, and plenty of time to come to terms with the mistakes he’d made. And of course, they _were_ his mistakes. He was too focused on his work and too caught up in his latest curation gig to be paying as much attention to his girlfriend as she deserves. Sure, that’s no excuse for how shitty it was of him to forget a _wedding_ , but pinpointing the problem has to be worth something. Right?

Probably not.

_He’s_ the only problem, anyway.

Ugh.

He trips his way out of his shoes and is halfway through stumbling across the living room when a wavering blue light in the corner of his eye catches his attention. He stops in place so abruptly that he nearly falls over his own feet, top-heavy in his drunkenness.

The bottle.

The light contained in the glass is still blue and ethereal, shifting like the edge of a body of water ripples in the moonlight. It’s untouched, just where he left it, just as captivating, even from the other side of the room.

He’d actually managed to forget again, after the drama with Lisa—even though his distraction over this damn thing is what _caused_ said drama to begin with. Now, though… Now, Dean lets himself be drawn back in, picking his way toward the coffee table to get a closer look, as he had been interrupted from doing earlier. He drops down to its level and leans in, nose nearly brushing the glass. Like when he first pulled it from its crate, the bottle’s light pulses in a tempo that seems to reflect him, like it _sees_ him. He inhales, and the brightness swells. Exhales, and it draws in on itself.

 

 

He sits back on his haunches at the side of the table, head momentarily dropping into his hands.

He shouldn’t have brought the bottle home. No matter how intriguing it is, no matter how much it seems to call to him, he should have actually listened to Ellie’s warnings. He definitely shouldn’t have taken those warnings to be the ravings of an overly-paranoid old woman— _which is pretty much exactly what he did_ , his drunken self reminds him. God, what if this thing kills him? Possesses him? Gives him cancer? How the hell is he supposed to tell Bobby and Ellie about _anything_ that comes of this?

It seems like he just isn’t capable of doing anything right today.

That last part stalls his thoughts in place. Slowly, he raises his face out of his palms, and locks his eyes back on the bottle.

If he’s already managed to fuck up as badly as he has today… Well. What argument is there that could possibly keep him from fucking up a little bit more? Go big or go home, right?

It doesn’t take anything more than that for his stance to flip completely, the booze in his system ensuring that changing his mind and reaching for the bottle suddenly seems like a wonderful idea. This time, before the glass’s warmth can make him lose his nerve—and it nearly does, because he swears he can feel the thing _vibrating_ with energy—he digs his fingernails into the cork and yanks it free.

For one, blissful second, nothing happens.

Then the bottle explodes in a ball of hot, blue light and Dean is thrown backwards, blinded by the scorching heat. He feels shattered glass shredding the skin of his hand and face, and the edge of the side table next to the couch digs painfully into his spine before the wood splinters and collapses under the force.

Dean’s vision is blurred as he stares up at the ceiling, but he’s too dazed to try to clear it. Every part of him hurts. He’s too stunned to move. He tries, but only gets as far as raising one of his arms before he gives up, the ache in his muscles reminiscent of that time Lisa lured him into doing a Tough Mudder with her.

Mistakes were made then. Mistakes have been made now.

He wheezes a cough, the sound just as pathetic as the man it came from.

“Well. That certainly wasn’t my best entrance.”

And just like that, Dean’s aches and pains are the least of his concerns, because who the _fuck_. He wrenches himself off of the remains of the side table and scrambles to his feet, panic easily compelling him beyond the protests of his muscles and making it easy to disregard the bleeding cuts he is now covered in.

In the center of the ring of destruction that was once Dean’s orderly living room, there’s a man. A man who’s _practically naked_ , his broad, tanned torso and arms on full display, while his hip bones peek out from the top of the loosest, most threadbare pair of pants that Dean has ever seen. The beige color of the fabric almost makes them looks like a continuation of his skin, offset only by the thick, blue folds that make up the top hem. They’re definitely not even enough to satisfy any public decency laws. In fact, Dean swears he can see—

He nearly chokes on his own tongue, and wrenches his eyes upwards.

“Who the fuck are you?” Dean demands, stumbling back from the strange man and scrambling to grab anything that he could possibly use as a self-defense weapon. He ends up brandishing the remote to his TV, snatched from the arm of the couch. “And how the hell did you get in here?”

The guy eyes the remote with a blank expression, then promptly disregards it. His blue eyes bore into Dean with an intensity that would make him squirm, if he weren’t terrified for his life.

(Okay, maybe he squirms a _little bit_ , but that’s not his fault. Upon further consideration, he’s determined that the man’s _hips_ are probably illegal in most states, not just the amount of exposure they’re getting. And who the hell _actually_ has abs like that? Not to mention the fact that the dark ink of a tattoo on the center of his chest and another around his bicep are just begging to be touched, if not _licked_.)

(And, hey, Dean’s a _little_ drunk. Being thrown onto his ass and then confronted by a stranger in his home may be helpful for sobering up, but there’s still only so much that fear can do.)

“Not the best greeting I’ve received, either,” the man says with a put-upon sigh, “but also not the worst. Although asking who I am seems a bit redundant, seeing as you summoned me.” He waves one of his hands in a lackluster gesture, freaky blue eyes never leaving Dean’s. The thick silver bands around his wrists practically glitter, adding flair that is clearly unintentional.

“I’m a genie.”

Dean’s brain short circuits. It takes him a moment too long to respond, his grip on the remote slackening. “A genie.”

“Yes.”

“Really.”

“I don’t know what other explanation there could be as to why I was summoned into being through a genie’s lamp.”

“A—” Dean frowns. “Dude, that wasn’t a lamp, it was a freaking _bottle_.”

One of the man’s eyebrows raises into a perfect arch. “Do you not even know what a lamp _is_ , human?”

Dean’s face heats at the tone of the man’s voice—damnit, why did he have to go drinking before _this_ —but he doesn’t let it throw him off. “Um, like a table lamp? Or the gravy-boat thing in Aladdin.”

The look that he gets in return is distinctly unimpressed. “A lamp is a container. Another definition is something which gives off light, often of a special variety. That _bottle_ more than qualifies. Or would you have preferred to have been gifted one of these _gravy boats_ you speak of?”

Dean scowls. So maybe the guy has a point, but doesn’t mean this is _normal_. He doesn’t really think he can be blamed for being out of his depth right now, sober or otherwise.

“So you’re a genie,” he says flatly, electing to skip past any more useless questioning. Not like it’s getting him anything other than sass, anyway, the strange man in front of him _radiating_ disinterest. Dean squints at him, though that doesn’t stop the slight swimming of his vision. “Fine. What does that mean, then? Do I get three wishes now?” He hesitates for a second, then tacks on, “And prove to me that you’re actually a genie, and not just some crazy dude from the street who busted in to mug me or something.”

The ‘genie’ rolls his eyes, but instead of giving Dean more shit like he expects, the man simply raises a hand, and then snaps his fingers. There’s a rush of silvery-blue energy, like that which first erupted from the bottle when Dean opened it, and after it washes over the room, Dean blinks.

His table is fixed, and every other odd or end which had been knocked over before has now been righted. It takes a moment longer to take effect, but he gasps when he feels the power wash over his skin, as well. He glances down just in time to see the damaged skin on his arms knit back together, cuts and bruises and accompanying blood from the explosion fading away like they were never there to begin with.

It feels like there’s a vice around Dean’s chest. “Jesus Christ.”

The genie’s head tilts. “No, I am Castiel. I am not associated with Christianity.”

Dean blinks. He can’t tell if he’s still being sassed, or if this strange being in front of him is just that literal. Judging by Castiel’s slightly-narrowed eyes and the crease between his brows, Dean is leaning toward the latter.

“Uh… Right.” He rubs at the back of his head, and glances around his living room. Magic. Genie. Maybe still a dash of Cajun hoodoo. He ignores the tendril of trepidation that runs down his spine and pointedly doesn’t let himself wonder what other weird items in Dr. Visyak’s lockup had a shred of authenticity to them. Definitely not the panic he needs to be having right now. “So. Wishes? Is that how this works? Let’s go back to that.”

Castiel looks up toward the ceiling, rolling out his neck. “Three. Our contract will end as soon as the final wish has been granted. You will receive no more than that.”

“Sure,” Dean agrees, “obviously.” That sounds pretty much like the same, clichéd genie nonsense that’s common in fairytales and movies. Except, of course, Dean has proof of this, marking it as distinctly _un_ -fairytale. He glances at his forearms, remembering the sting of the glass that had cut into his skin.

He’s not _that_ drunk. Is he?

He looks back up at the genie. “So… Can I wish for anything?”

“There are rules,” Castiel answers blandly. He stares at Dean as though he is little more than an insect, hardly worthy of even idle curiosity. Dean can’t say he appreciates it, but Castiel clearly doesn’t care, because he continues on in the same bored tone, ticking the items off on his fingers, “You may not wish for the death of any living person or thing; you may not wish for _life_ for any un-living person or thing; you may not wish for love; you may not wish for supreme power or anything of that sort.”

“Can I wish to be president? Or does that count as _supreme_?”

“ _Are_ you wishing to be president?”

Dean rolls his eyes. No joking around with this guy, apparently. “Just asking a clarifying question.”

Castiel makes a face. “Don’t ask clarifying questions, make wishes. Once they are spoken, they cannot be undone, and I would prefer to get this done with, besides.”

“Right. I’m sure.” Christ, what did Dean do to deserve this? His jury is still out on whether it’s a good or bad thing that he accidentally stole a genie, but ignoring the magical element, Dean didn’t _ask_ for a home invader tonight, thank you, much less a _reluctant_ one. He didn’t ask for damn verbal abuse from a rude sex-god-slash-maybe-genie.

All he had really wanted for the night was to further his alcoholism and drink himself to sleep to forget his miseries. Was that really such a bad thing to want?

Castiel starts to speak again in the same instant that Dean decides to turn away from him, which means the genie’s words get drowned out beneath the ringing of his ears. He’d moved too fast, turned too sharply, and the liquor sloshing in his stomach didn’t take kindly to it. The wave of dizziness dominates his attention far more than a stranger’s rambling can.

He makes a vague gesture to silence it, and combats the spinning of his vision by pressing the hells of his palms into his eye sockets.   

“You know what? You’re probably not even real. _Wishes_. Right. Forget it, I’m going to bed.”

If this is real, as he firmly tells himself, then it’s a problem for Sober Dean. Or, well. Hungover Dean, maybe. Either-or, depending on how poorly the booze in his gut settles into his bloodstream.

He keeps his hands over his eyes as he turns and marches out of the room, trusting his internal map to get him to his bedroom. He only bumps into one side table and doesn’t stub his toe on anything other than his own doorframe, which he definitely counts as a win. By some miracle, he manages to coordinate his limbs enough to strip down to his boxers as he collapses onto his bed, and gets a fair number of blankets tangled around him soon after. It’s a good thing, too—he’s asleep the moment his head hits his pillow, and all of his fuck-ups of the day fade into blackness.

 

 

In the morning, he tells himself it was a dream. Given the ache between his temples and the unpleasant tang of post-booze morning breath that has made itself at home in the fur on his teeth, it’s an easy thing to do. A vivid, elaborate dream, maybe, but a dream nonetheless.

As such, he takes his time psyching himself up to get out of bed, and then slowly shuffles out to the kitchen in search of painkillers and coffee without even opening his eyes all the way. The robe around his shoulders is there purely for warmth in the drafty kitchen, modesty being the last thing on his mind as he sets a pot of coffee to brew and then swallows down a pair of Tylenol dry.

“Is it customary in this age to wear blankets?”

Dean yelps in surprise, and spins around so quickly that he starts to lose his balance and falls back hard against the counter. He’s sure he’s going to have a bruise on his hip from where the edge digs into him, but he can’t bring himself to care, because there’s _someone in his_ _apartment_ —

“C-Castiel.” The maybe-probably-genie. Who is currently standing in the entrance to his kitchen, just as nearly-naked as he’d been last night. Holy shit, not a dream. Dean’s eyes are wide, and when Castiel arches an eyebrow, he blushes, too. “I, uh… You’re…”

Castiel’s other eyebrow joins the first, both making an impressive bid toward his hairline. “The blanket,” he repeats, slowly, like he’s speaking to a child. “Is that what passes as acceptable clothing in this current age?”

“The—” Dean glances down at himself, uncomprehending. “You mean my robe?” He plucks at the fabric, then hastily tugs it further closed when he realizes just how exposed his bare chest is. He ties the sash as tight as he can, his cheeks burning. “It’s not a _blanket_ , dude, just a robe. It’s, like—related to sleeping wear. Since I’m not dressed yet. Clearly.”

Castiel, for his part, looks no less… whatever it is he’s portraying. Amusement? Does he actually have a sense of humor? From what Dean is starting to more clearly remember of the night before, that’s a surprise. Even the errant shrug of Castiel’s shoulder conveys it in a way, though, the genie’s lips curling up just slightly.

“Clearly,” he agrees, eyes raking over Dean in a way that’s almost suggestive, only lacking any heat. “Twenty-eighteen is a strange time indeed.”

Still red-cheeked, Dean grumbles in objection, “Because what _you’re_ wearing is so much better?”

Because again, those pants? Not legal. No way in hell. And there’s just so much _skin_ , all tanned and smooth and muscular and—

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” Castiel asks, lip jutting out in a frown as he glances down at himself. He plucks at the beige fabric of his pants, causing the blue, embroidered band to resettle a centimeter lower on his hip. Dean is tempted to scream.

“What’s _wrong_ with it?” he says instead through gritted teeth, eyes rising to the ceiling to keep them from lingering on anything they shouldn’t. For fuck’s sake, he has a _girlfriend_. He may be an equal-opportunities kind of guy, but he’s taken, and definitely not in the market to be ogling hot strangers.

Nearly strangers.

Does ‘strangers’ apply if the stranger in question is an inhuman entity which has temporarily been tied to him?

Dean huffs to himself and goes on, “What’s wrong is that it’s indecent. I don’t know when or where the hell you’re from, but nowadays, it’s typically considered polite to wear actual clothes, that cover all of your… bits. As in, a shirt and some real pants. You can’t honestly tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Castiel tilts his head consideringly. “I know what you mean,” he agrees, “but I cannot say that I approve. I rather like dressing like this. It’s far more comfortable than your ‘shirts and real pants’. Furthermore, I am impervious to temperature. There is no need for me to wear uncomfortable clothing when it serves no purpose to begin with. I don’t like how it feels against my skin.”

Dean groans in frustration. Of _course_ the genie has some sort of logical explanation as to _why_ he’s apparently perpetually indecent. Of course this has to be as ridiculous of a situation as possible.

Genie. With an aversion to clothes. And more sass than Dean has ever seen gathered in one single, living organism in all his life.

“Right, well.” He scrubs his palms across his face, then finally turns away from Castiel in favor of pouring himself a mug of coffee from the now-finished pot. He’s going to need it, and for more than just the lingering ache between his temples. “Maybe I’ll find you some softer clothes, then. I don’t need you getting arrested for public indecency or something.”

“Are you planning on having me accompany you in a public space?” comes Castiel’s retort, just as Dean is taking his first sip of too-hot coffee. He nearly chokes on it, and is still sputtering as he turns to duck around the genie.

“No! You’re not going anywhere. Just—shut up.” Dean makes himself busy by pulling his laptop out, providing yet another excuse not to look directly at his new houseguest. He’s still skeptical about the _genie_ claim, so before he accepts it, he’s going to be damn sure he does his due diligence and digs into actual facts. And if genies are real, then they must have history somewhere; Dean just has to find the right culture’s mythology to dig into.

Which is going to take focus that’s going to be awfully hard to achieve if Castiel is going to continue following him around. The genie leans low over the table to try to get a look at Dean’s laptop screen, looking genuinely enthralled by the piece of technology, but all that really means is too much skin in Dean’s personal space, and warm breath that he can practically taste when he inhales.

_Abort abort abort abort—_

He gripes without thinking, mostly in an attempt to reassert some kind of control over the situation, “Maybe I should just _wish_ for you to put goddamn clothes on, if you’re going to be an ass about it.”

He wouldn’t, of course, but even just the sight that Castiel makes in Dean’s periphery is enough to be a distraction. A no-fuss solution would be great, especially if it comes before his new houseguest’s appearance ( _sex god_ , he remembers thinking of it last night) destroys his sanity.

It isn’t until he sees Castiel begin to raise his hand that Dean realizes his mistake. The genie raises two fingers, prepared to snap them, and Dean just about inhales coffee through his nose in his haste to turn and stop him. His resulting coughing fit seems to distract Castiel, at least, which then buys Dean the time he needs to recover and growl, “Don’t you dare steal a wish from me for that, you son of a bitch, you know I didn’t mean it.”

Reasserting his control? Not his best idea. Even if Dean can’t say he’s entirely sold on the legitimacy of Castiel’s genie-ness, the potential of it is too real for a wasted wish not to scare him.

Judging by the way Castiel shrugs, smugness clear in the upward curve of his lips, he knows exactly that. “Make wishes. Not threats.”

Dean grunts, but doesn’t otherwise answer him. He’s really not eager to dig himself into any more holes, and the research that awaits him is more important than banter.

Except, as he tries to get himself into that research, Castiel shuffles closer. He cranes his neck to try to see Dean’s laptop screen better, trails his fingertips over the spine of an old, priceless book of lore that sits on the table, moves in so close to Dean that their arms press together—it’s all too damn much.

“Can you go _anywhere_ else?” Dean asks tersely. He reaches out and pushes at the genie’s shoulder, trying to force him away. His skin is warm to the touch, and feels just as charged as the bottle he came from did. “Go watch TV or something, for god’s sake. I can’t look shit up with you hanging over me like this. Modern technology is real fascinating, I know, but go admire it _elsewhere_.”

Castiel frowns, assesses Dean for a long moment, then rolls his eyes and moves away from the table as requested. “I’ll just keep myself occupied until you decide on your wishes, then. Call me if you need me, master.”

Dean just about chokes on his tongue. Castiel stares at him while he splutters, an eyebrow raised in a way that Dean can already see is a trademark identifier of sass. He doesn’t even care if the genie is laughing at him over this, though. He thinks he’s justified.

When he’s recovered, he chokes out, “ _Master_?”

Castiel’s amusement only grows. “You’re the master of the lamp,” he says, like it should be obvious. “And you have not given me a name to call you by otherwise.”

Damn logical _bastard_. Why does he have to always have such a good explanation at the ready?

Dean groans and drops his head into his hands. “ _Dean_. My name’s Dean. Don’t call me… the other thing.”

“You don’t like being called ‘master’?” Castiel asks, false innocence clear in his voice, and Dean whips his head back up to glare at him.

“ _No_. Now please, just—”

Castiel waves his hand. “Yes, yes, I’m going.”

By some miracle, Castiel actually does just that. Watching him walk away gives Dean a view of a muscled back and shoulders that he’s sure is going to be permanently scorched into his retinas, but as soon as the genie/sex god disappears into the living room, Dean just about goes lightheaded at how abruptly the ability to breathe returns to him.

He can hear Cas poking around at things he probably shouldn’t, and when the TV gets turned on, the channels are switched so rapidly that Dean has an all new headache just thinking about it—but at least the genie isn’t bothering him directly, so he’s going to take what he can get. He blocks it out as much as he can, relying on his coffee for strength.

It’s going to be a long couple of days.

 

 

Correction: it’s going to be a long couple of _weeks_. Considering it takes almost a full day for Dean to blunder his way through enough research and lore to feel satisfied that Castiel really is a genie, he has a feeling getting through being _master of the lamp_ won’t be a hop, skip, and a jump, either.

Dean may work with fanciful stories and the mythology of various cultures on a daily basis, but even still, it’s easy to see that he’s out of his depth on this one.

As he looks at Castiel, though, lurking in the living room and flipping through TV channels as he’s been doing for going on seven solid hours now (he’d taken a break prior to that to tear through Dean’s bookshelf), Dean can’t help but wonder if maybe… This isn’t as impossible as it seems. Weird, yes, paradigm-shifting even, but it makes an odd sort of _sense_.

He wasn’t able to find anything in his research pertaining to the tattoo on Castiel’s chest, the elegant, black lines not connecting to any of the cultures that he has been able to find any sort of information on. The ink around his bicep, however, _does_ seem to resemble an ancient Middle Eastern language, nearly Arabic but not quite. Even with the skillset he has, Dean doesn’t bother trying to decipher the twisting lines beyond that; he’s satisfied enough with the knowledge that it’s all passably legitimate, and _that_ is what helps him to believe, even more so than the sample of magic he witnessed.

If Dean really wants to be a cynic, he could say that the magic was faked, or maybe even hallucinated. He had hit his head on the way down after the bottle blew, after all. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility. The tattoos, though, those imply a truth, a story, an origin, an explanation. The more he thinks about it, too, the more he thinks about what Dr. Visyak was always saying in her classes.

_Never rule anything out._

_Don’t be afraid of believing what doesn’t seem believable._

It’s not a surprise, then, that Dean also finds himself thinking about his grandfather. It’s not a huge leap to make.

His grandpa Henry used to always talk about his time with a ‘secret government organization’, where it was his job to keep people safe from things that went bump in the night. When Dean was just a kid, Henry would prop him up on his knee and tell him all sorts of fantastical stories about myths and fairytales and nightmares come to life.

John, unsurprisingly, would scoff and call them the delusions of an ailing old veteran. Dean, however… Dean liked to think better of his grandfather. Maybe his young, impressionable mind was to blame for that, but no matter what John would tell him when they left Grandpa Henry’s place, Dean always believed. That’s why he took the path he did in life, pursuing ancient history and classics and digging himself so deeply into both of them that working as a scholar and translator of old texts fell into his lap without any additional effort. The occasional curation work he does, usually facilitated by Dr. Visyak, is just a bonus on top of that, though even those jobs come naturally to him.

In short, Dean likes history, and mythology, and old lore that no one talks about believing in civilized conversation. That’s what Dean _thrives on_.

So maybe the idea of Castiel being a genie isn’t all that crazy.

He’s just going to have to make sure he doesn’t think about the possibility of anything _other_ than genies maybe being less than fairytales. He completely respects Visyak and the advice she gives, but, well. One thing at a time.

Facing the fact that Cas is actually a genie presents Dean with a whole new set of problems, though. Having a guy bust into his apartment who _thinks_ he’s a genie is one thing, but to have an actual genie at his fingertips?

Does Dean tell someone?

No, probably not. They’d think he’s crazy, too lost in the subjects that he works with to be rational anymore. Lisa would probably break up with him. Sam would drag him off to a doctor. And really, Castiel probably doesn’t want to be outed and made into a spectacle, anyway. The guy may not be sunshine and rainbows, but Dean still wouldn’t do that to him.

Should he mention it to Ellie?

That one gets a quick and resounding _hell, no_. He’s curious as all get-out as to how she came to have an honest-to-god genie in her decades-old storage lockup, but admitting that he knows about an honest-to-god genie would mean admitting to having _stolen_ said honest-to-god genie, and that sounds like a very, _very_ bad idea.

And finally, the most prominent question in Dean’s mind, what is there to even wish for?

He’s never been much of a materialistic person—growing up without a lot of money will do that to you, not that that’s a fact he resents—so it’s not as though he has a Christmas list to pass off to genie-Santa. He’s also not so unoriginal as to simply wish for money, or so stupid as to wish to be rich and famous. He’s not going to wish to be a prince so that he can win over a princess.

The thing is, Dean is happy where he is. He likes his job, even if it’s more freelance than steady pay. He likes his apartment. He likes his car, likes his girlfriend, likes his relationship with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend. He likes the rest of his extended family. He’s content, just as he is.

So what the fuck does he do with three wishes from an all-powerful genie?

“You seem to be thinking very hard about something,” a voice near Dean says, and he starts away from the wall he had been leaning against in surprise.

“Jesus fuck, Cas!” he shouts, clutching one-handedly at his racing heart. He glares at the genie, heat flooding his cheeks. “Don’t _do_ that! I’ll put a bell on you if I have to, so help me god.”

Castiel gives him an unimpressed look. It seems to be a popular expression, when he’s talking to Dean. Jackass. “I’ve been standing here for some time. I believe that’s your fault for failing to notice.”

Dean’s glare deepens into a scowl. “Don’t be a smartass. That’ll _really_ get you a bell. A really stupid-looking one.”

The genie rolls his eyes. “My magic will be superior to your bell, human. Do you truly think I would be unable to silence a piece of metal?”

Fuck, he’s got a point. Dean scrambles, and flings out the first, harried comeback that he can assemble: “You can’t silence it if I wish for you not to! I’m in charge, remember?”

Unfortunately, Castiel’s lips just curl further, until he’s smirking outright. “Oh yes, what a wonderful idea. Make that wish, then. For your own sake, I hope your creativity grows in time for whatever may follow. Or are you going to return to also wishing for me to wear more acceptable clothing? That would be two, then you need only make your third wish to be free of me.”

The clothes. Right. Didn’t take long to come back to that. Dean frowns at Castiel. “I’m not wasting my wishes, buddy, but nice try.”

“That suits me, too.” The genie shrugs, then moves around Dean to wander into the kitchen. He inspects the temporary research station spread across the table with an air of idle curiosity. “This is the most interesting thing to happen to me in sixty years. My lamp isn’t exactly known for its entertainment value. What has your research turned up?”

Dean blinks at the rapid succession of subjects, his defensiveness draining away. He doesn’t know how to handle Castiel’s apparent tendency of keeping him on his toes, but work? Work, Dean can talk about. Work is his safe haven.

He drifts after the genie, his scholarly side beginning to itch, and waves a vague hand at the mess on the table. “Uh. Well. I believe that you’re a genie now, to sum this all up.” He folds his arms over his chest, and tries not to look as completely intrigued as he feels. “Sixty years, you said?”

Castiel hums in answer. He’s now actively rooting through Dean’s books and print-outs, brow furrowed in concentration. “I’ve had to wait longer between masters in the past,” he says, then, picking up a book to study it more closely, “This is a fascinating array of knowledge you have gathered here. Where did you get all of this?”

“What, the books?” Dean leans a hip against the edge of the table and starts stacking up the books Cas isn’t touching, mostly to give himself something to do with his hands. “This is my work. I, uh, translate old texts, research specific topics, stuff like that. Write journal articles occasionally. My specialty is mythology of the middle ages, so even though I had to shift back a bit further than I’m used to to find lore on genies, it wasn’t all that difficult, all things considered.”

Dean doesn’t get a response to that for longer than he’s expecting, and when he glances up, it’s to find Castiel staring at him, his head cocked to the side. It makes Dean feel self-conscious; he starts down-stacking his books again. “Cas?”

The genie blinks. “Yes. Sorry.” He straightens back out, and replaces the book he had been holding. “You didn’t strike me as the kind of man to be interested in a subject such as this. I’m surprised; not disappointed, but surprised nonetheless.”

Dean isn’t quite sure why that makes his cheeks go warm, but it does. He clears his throat, gaze skittering away. “Yeah, well, you ain’t the first one to be surprised. Guess I just don’t strike a lot of people as the nerdy type, but here we are.”

Cas makes a sound in the back of his throat that Dean doesn’t quite know how to interpret. He looks back up, curious, but when he meets Cas’ eyes, the genie waves him off. “It’s nothing. Although, I figure if you are in a field such as this one, it is because you hold a genuine passion for it? From what I recall of human culture, that is what should matter more than anything else.”

“Oh. Uh.” Dean wets his lips, eyes skittering away from the genie’s. That has to be the nicest thing Cas has said to him, and he doesn’t quite know what to do with it. “Having passion is good, yeah. Passion doesn’t pay the bills, but I get by well enough, so I’m not complaining.”

If anything, Castiel’s curiosity only seems to grow stronger. “You aren’t paid well for this work?” he asks. The notion seems to genuinely surprise him.

Dean shrugs. “Museum gigs pay the best, but it’s not like there’s a lot of budget for historians or classicists, from anywhere. Unless I could get into a university, but I’m not ready to push for that just yet.”

“You could be a university professor?”

“One day. Not now. I don’t know, it’s complicated.”

Castiel gives him a calculating look. “You could wish for that, you know.”

Dean goes still, the simple suggestion rocking him to his core. He had vaguely thought about his career in relation to his wishes, but not in terms of securing himself a place at a university, or getting some kind of tenure anywhere. Now that Cas has suggested it, though, Dean does let himself think about it, staring at the genie with wide eyes all the while.

He could do it. He could wish for the ultimate dream position at a university. Hell, he could go _Ivy League_. He could go anywhere, be anything, and probably demand a pretty steep payment, to boot. He could skip over all of the grunt work and go straight to the top of the food chain.

Except…

The grandeur of the idea fades away just as quickly as it arrived, and Dean shakes his head. “I can’t wish for that. Nice as it might be, that’s something I have to earn. If I don’t do it the right way, scoring a job like that isn’t going to mean anything, and I won’t appreciate it as much as I want to. I knew what this field was like when I joined it, I can’t cheat it now.”

Castiel, for his part, is back to looking surprised. “You would truly prefer to labor for a job you want rather than wish for it? You _have_ these wishes, Dean, there would be no harm in using them for such a personal gain. I have granted more to others who had less reason to want it.”

“I have to earn it,” Dean says again, shrugging off Cas’ confusion. He gets why the genie wouldn’t understand his determination in this regard, but he also doesn’t really want to linger on the discussion for too long for fear of being _talked_ _out_ of that determination, so he changes the subject, rocking back on his heels and folding his arms across his chest. “What do you mean, you’ve _granted more_? What kind of stuff have your past, uh—people, wished for?”

“My past _masters_ ,” Castiel corrects. Apparently Dean wasn’t subtle in avoiding that word, then; at least Castiel doesn’t seem to be offended by it, and the subject has successfully been changed. Small victories.

Cas goes on, “Technically, my magic supersedes the standard rules, essentially rendering it boundless. That said, I have still stretched myself just past the point of conventional magic, in the past. I have granted species changes, sex changes, near limitless fortunes, impossible amounts of gold. A herd of cows, once, which was then used as a bribe to help a young man win approval to wed his lover. That one was sweet, if an immediate nuisance. The sudden appearance of a herd of cows is not easily managed, no matter the setting.”

Each of the given examples is incredibly interesting, but the dry amusement which is laced through the _herd of cows_ comment has Dean barking a laugh. “Alright, well, if nothing else, I can promise you I won’t wish for _that_. I count myself lucky that I was born into a culture that isn’t dependent on livestock, so there won’t be a herd of anything in this apartment, thank you very much.”

Castiel smiles at that, the expression small but impossible to miss. It scrunches up the corners of his eyes in a way that’s damn near adorable, and Dean’s own smile widens in answer.

“I’ll hold you to that, Dean. No cows.”

“No cows,” Dean echoes. It’s such a nonsensical promise for him to make, as he’s sure Cas is aware, but there’s no harm in saying it anyway. After the rocky beginning they had to their acquaintanceship, it feels good to have a bit of genuine levity between them. Dean wouldn’t say it makes them friends by any means, but it’s definitely not a bad place to start.

And if Castiel is going to be around for some unknown length of time, well. They might as well try to be friends, right?

With that thought in mind, Dean makes an intentional effort to loosen his posture, and slides his hands into the pockets of his jeans. They’re still just standing next to the research-strewn kitchen table, and a glance at the clock mounted on the wall tells him it’s getting late. Dean runs his tongue across the front of his teeth, then makes an offer before he can think of a reason not to.

“I’m going to make some dinner, do you want something to eat?”

“Oh. Um.” The genie’s eyebrows are now making a desperate bid toward his hairline, shock of a different kind coloring his features until hesitancy takes its place. “I don’t need to eat.”

Dean frowns, but chooses to let that roll off his back. He lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “ _Can_ you eat, even if you don’t need to?”

Castiel blinks. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“Cool. I’ll whip something up, then. How about you…” Actually, he’s not really sure what he can tell the genie to do to pass the time. He chews on his lip for a moment as he considers it, then settles on making a vague gesture. “I don’t know, just don’t break anything, I guess. You can read my books if you’re careful with them, or go back to watching TV. I’ll let you know when grub’s up.”

He receives a nod in answer, and though he can tell that Castiel is still vaguely baffled by the development, Dean leaves him to his devices and turns to the fridge to start assessing what ingredients he can throw together. Even if he doesn’t look it, the genie is a hell of a lot older than Dean is, and as such, Dean’s sure he’s capable of figuring out how to keep himself occupied. Sure enough, after only a few more minutes, Cas—the nickname is a hell of a lot simpler than _Castiel_ , and helps Dean to think past the guy’s inhuman nature (as much as might be possible, given the fact that he also has to look past Cas’ strange tattoos and unnaturally blue eyes)—drifts off toward the TV once again, leaving Dean to cook in solitude.

A genie. Who would’ve thought.

Dean thinks about it a bit more while he putters around in the kitchen, because how could he _not_ , but all things considered, it turns out to be surprisingly easy to act like everything is normal. He puts together a stroganoff and serves it over egg noodles, and though Cas seems hesitant when Dean hands him a plate, the genie eats every last bite with gusto.

Apparently, the genie has a weakness for food. They end up sharing a pie from the freezer for dessert (it’s not the best, but it’s Dean’s emergency stash, so it’ll have to do), and in the morning, Cas sits next to Dean and happily eats a pancake breakfast, too. Food turns out to be a good, safe medium between the two of them.

Since Dean doesn’t have the slightest idea of what to do with his wishes, though, the couple days which have already passed since he first found Cas’ lamp melt into a few more. Cas objects to the delay on more than one occasion, but distracting him proves to be a simple task. All Dean has to do is feed him, or put on a movie or a TV show for binge-watching, or, hell, even start talking about something work related, and Cas drops the subject just as quickly as he brought it up.

It's almost _too_ easy, really.

But as they settle in—and as Dean tries to figure out if he should _think about_ Cas being a genie or _not think_ _about_ Cas being a genie—it’s all remarkably easy. Cas is perpetually on the cranky side, and he’s always sassy as hell, but Dean still manages to establish a decent rapport with him. Dean tells Cas about himself, and about his life. He tells him about his show-off lawyer of a brother, Sam, and Sam’s (kickass) girlfriend, Eileen. In exchange, Cas tells him about life as a genie.

The two of them also bond over food, and also, notably, over pop culture. As it turns out, television was only barely getting started the last time Cas was out of his lamp, and the only movie he saw during his last bit of freedom was the second half of _Cinderella_.

When he learned that fact, Dean felt physical pain.

And that’s how they end up marathoning _Star Wars_ , _Indiana Jones_ , _Harry Potter_ , _Star Trek: The Original Series_ , and everything else that Dean can think of that is deserving of the label _iconic_. He watches most of it alongside Cas, but the genie carries on when Dean is busy, too, furthering his pop culture education and keeping himself occupied. When that has to happen, they take to discussing the show-of-the-day over lunch and/or dinner. Dinner which, after the first few days, Dean ropes Cas into helping him prepare, so that the genie isn’t a completely useless roommate.

Cas tries to hide it, but Dean can tell that he likes cooking. After he catches the bug, the genie steadily starts initiating more and more of the meal-making. Reluctant assistant becomes sous chef, and sous chef becomes co-chef. Waking up to breakfast is a damn incredible thing, and Dean knows without a doubt that turning his genie into a cook is the best thing he could have done.

The other benefit to Cas’ developing love for cooking is that Dean ends up with more time to focus on his work. There wasn’t anything on his desk with an important deadline when he found Cas’ lamp—which is why he was able to burn a day to sort through Dr. Visyak’s storage lockup, thus leading to this entire mess—but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing for him to do. There’s always some translation or another for him to be working on, and there’s always something that he’s been putting off that he can catch up on.

Another bonus with his work comes from the fact that Cas, as a being who’s older than Dean can fathom, has insight into history and mythology he never would have imagined having access to. It feels like cheating to ask him for the answers to _everything_ , but Dean isn’t above phoning a friend for the occasional difficult-to-translate word or phrase.

And there’s definitely nothing wrong with talking mythology with a mythological creature, right? After all, who else is Dean supposed to talk to to get verification that dragons were real? The genie claims that they’re extinct now, bones all long since turned to ash, but that doesn’t make it any less fascinating.

Furthermore, with Cas displaying as much interest as he is in Dean’s work, Dean’s own interest—somehow, impossibly—also grows. He has always loved what he does, but having someone like Cas around who also loves what he does makes it all so much more fun. Making progress means he has new material to show off to his pseudo-roommate, and new material means new things for them to talk about over meals and between TV shows.

Dean works harder than he ever has before. And he doesn’t regret a minute of it.

But between his increased work ethic and his appreciation for his chats with Cas, Dean can’t really bring himself to be surprised when his usually-rigid schedule begins to fall apart. They cook, they talk, they further Cas’ pop culture education, and overall, Dean steadily demonstrates to Cas what it is to be human—there’s a lot going on.

So if there’s a few occasions wherein Dean falls asleep on the couch or at the table, worn out by work or Cas or some combination of the two, it’s only to have been expected.

And if those occasions typically end with Dean waking up in his own bed, tucked in in a way he doesn’t do on his own, well.

It’s not something they need to talk about.

 

 

Dean likes Cas. He likes Cas’ contribution to the apartment, likes having someone around, likes their dynamic. He sometimes still struggles with the genie’s mostly-nude state, and finds himself affected by all that tan, smooth skin on more than one occasion, but it gradually becomes easier to ignore, especially as they become better friends.

And they _do_ become better friends; Dean likes Cas, Cas (seems to) like Dean, and the two of them _work_.

If they weren’t on their way to being actual friends, Dean wouldn’t be comfortable leaving a strange man alone in his apartment. Hell, even though they’re friendly, he _still_ feels weird about it, when it needs to happen—but he got a call from a friend at the museum, and that’s something he knows better than to turn down. He spends half an hour before he goes detailing all sorts of different emergency scenarios to Cas, just to make sure everything isn’t going to go to shit the minute the door closes behind him. He even leaves Cas his cell phone number, even though the genie doesn’t have a phone to call him with.

It isn’t until Cas looks him in the eye and says, “Dean, _go_ ,” that he actually does just that.

When he walks back into the apartment six hours later, he’s pleasantly surprised to find that nothing is on fire or otherwise destroyed. Add in the fact that Cas is already partway through making dinner, and Dean is nothing short of ecstatic.

“You know, a guy could really get used to this,” he says, joining Cas in the kitchen. He can’t tell what the genie is cooking, but he figures there’s a plan in place, so elects to stay out of the way. He hops up onto an empty strip of counter and grins. “I don’t have to pay you for this, do I? I mean, I feel like this is a good exchange for me letting you live here and not in that hunk of glass for a while, but if you’re going to demand cash, it would probably be best if you let me know as soon as possible.”

Cas rolls his eyes, his entire body moving along with the gesture. It only makes Dean grin wider. “No, I am not going to ask for monetary payment in exchange for preparing you dinner. Don’t be absurd.” He mixes whatever it is in his pot, then goes to the fridge to pull out some more ingredients. He asks over his shoulder, “How was the museum?”

Dean shrugs. “It was alright. There’s some plans in the works for a new exhibit that they might bring me in on, but I’m only involved for consulting right now, not as a curator. I’ll be more excited once it’s a real job.”

“I see.” Cas adds a flurry of ingredients to his pot, an eyebrow raised as he casts a quick glance up toward Dean. “What would it take for you to secure that job, then? Are you able to become a full curator?”

“Uh, well…” Dean rubs at the back of his neck. He remembers Cas’ suggestion that he could use a wish for work-related advancements, but his stance on that front hasn’t changed, so he doesn’t really want to think about it. “It’ll take luck, mostly. The rest of the team at the museum would have to decide that I’m a useful enough perspective to hire on, and to get to that point, I’d need my resume to be in top shape. I’d probably need Dr. Visyak to pull a few strings, too. If she recommended me, I’d probably be in a pretty good spot, but I haven’t gotten around to talking to her about it.”

The sudden change in Cas’ posture is nearly imperceptible, but Dean is paying attention. He sees the genie’s interest in the slight turn of his head. “Dr. Visyak?”

“Yeah. Eleanor Visyak. She was the college professor who really got me on the path I’m on today; she’s got a lot of influence. She’s also engaged to my uncle, though, so she’s practically family by this point.”

Something about that is worthy of securing Cas’ full attention. Between blinks, the genie steps right up to Dean’s knees, bright eyes boring into the human’s. Dean swallows thickly, but can’t bring himself to so much as lean away. Cas’ proximity, as always, is magnetic.

“Is this Eleanor Visyak the one responsible for your acquiring of my lamp?” he asks.

Dean doesn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t _that_. He did _acquire_ the lamp from Ellie, technically speaking, but—he clears his throat. “Um, yeah. Why?”

Cas’ lips stretch into a wide smile. “And she is engaged? This uncle of yours, she loves him? And he loves her?”

“Yeah? They’re the sappiest couple I know. But how the hell do you know—”

It hits Dean midsentence, and his eyes go wide. He can tell that Cas sees it, too, because the genie’s amusement grows.

They’ve talked around Cas’ last occasion out of his lamp, but Dean had never actually asked any specifics.

“Holy shit.”

Cas hums, and finally goes back to his dinner preparation. “Ellie is a lovely woman. I’m glad to know that she is one of your guides in life. She is happy with your uncle, then?”

Cas’ back is turned, but that doesn’t stop Dean from nodding. “Oh, yeah. Bobby’s the happiest he’s ever been, thanks to Ellie, and I’ve known the guy my whole life. He lost his first wife to cancer, and he didn’t even really have an interest in _dating_ until he met Ellie. The two of them click. They have a good life together. Here, I’ll show you.” He slips his phone out of his pocket and opens up Facebook so that he can search out some pictures of the couple.

“See for yourself.” He pulls up a photo of Bobby and Ellie from last Thanksgiving and holds his phone so that Cas can see. The genie reaches out towards the picture, his fingers hovering just above the screen and his expression soft.

“She’s aged,” he whispers quietly. “She really _is_ in love.” When he looks back up at Dean, his eyes are bright and his smile wide. “I’m so happy for her, Dean.” Cas looks at the picture one last time, then moves back to his place by the stove. The curve of a smile still lingers on his lips.

Dean closes out of the photo and tabs back to his newsfeed. “Yeah,” he agrees, “they’re the real deal alright. Looks like she used her wishes well, whatever they were. I’m just glad they’re both happy.”

Cas hums, but doesn’t say anything else. Dean leaves him to his thoughts and scrolls idly through his newsfeed, skimming over the array of posts, but not really looking at any of them. He’s too caught up in his own thinking, about Ellie and Bobby. About love and wishes.

Something catches his eye, and he stops his slow scrolling.

**_Lisa Braeden was tagged in 43 photos_.**

The post is big and bold, impossible to ignore even if he wanted to. The few photos being sampled right below that, however, catch his attention even more than the top line of text does. He taps in before he can talk himself out of it.

A few of the pictures are of Lisa, her brother, and a variety of other people before the wedding, but the majority of them are of her in her bridesmaid dress either with the full wedding party or a smaller, splintered-off group. She looks gorgeous in all of them, as she always does. Dean’s heart throbs at the sight of her smile, brighter than he’s seen in person in far too long.

The last picture in the list practically knocks the wind out of him.

It’s Lisa and one of the groomsmen, standing arm in arm just off to the side of the main party, who seem to have still been taking their official pictures at the time. It’s somewhat candid in nature, neither Lisa nor the groomsman looking toward the camera, and it looks intimate because of that. They’re smiling at one another like no one else exists. Lisa’s happiness is practically a tangible thing.

Dean wonders when it was that she stopped looking at _him_ like that.

But of course, the worst part of it all is that Dean did this to himself. It could have been him standing in that groomsman’s place, could have been him making Lisa smile like that. He could have been with her instead of being _here_ , in his apartment, just like always. If only he weren’t such a shitty boyfriend.

He knows for a fact that Lisa is the love of his life, and if he wants to have any hope of getting to _their_ wedding, he needs to act like it. He needs to fix the mess he’s made. He needs to prove himself.

Luckily for Dean, he thinks he might know just how to do that.

“Dean?” Cas hedges, clearly confused by the depth of the silence which has fallen between them. “Is everything alright?”

“So, Cas.” Dean twists his phone between his fingers, flipping it again and again and then tapping it against his thigh. There’s an idea forming in his mind, and while he doesn’t want to put too much stock into it just yet, he can’t stop himself from feeling a little bit giddy. “How far can I go with a single wish?”

 

 

Dean makes an effort to be extra careful when making his first official wish, too wary of all of the mythology he’s read or translated in which the wisher asks for something easily misinterpreted to do it in any other way. Cas rolls his eyes at all of the extra clauses Dean throws in, but surprisingly, doesn’t give Dean any lip for it. In fact, the genie is almost stonily silent when he processes the wish, speaking only after he has snapped his fingers and his eyes and tattoos alike have lit up with the blue of his magic to announce, “It’s done. You have two wishes remaining.”

Dean tells himself that the unpleasantness that tugs at his gut is because he immediately regrets not pushing his wish even higher. It’s definitely not because Cas’ shuttered expression sends a confusing sort of guilt curling through him.

It isn’t guilt, because he has nothing to be guilty about. He needs this. He _and Lisa_ need this. And Cas’ magic is at his disposal to give him exactly what he needs.

Maybe it’ll take more than a date to get them fully back on track, but thanks to Cas, it’s going to be the best date they’ve ever had, which means it’s a damn good place to start. Lisa has always liked grand gestures, and this will be the grandest Dean has ever made.

Because from a man who’s terrified of heights, what’s more grand than setting aside that fear and renting out a hot air balloon?

As the plan goes—and was painstakingly recounted to Cas several times over—he’ll take Lisa to the park, they’ll have a nice walk out to the clearing where the balloon will be waiting for them, they’ll ride it up, see the sights, come back down, then have a picturesque picnic at the top of a hill in the same clearing where they can sit and watch the sunset together. It’ll be sweet, simple yet extravagant, and utterly perfect. He knows it’ll be something that Lisa enjoys, too, and that’s the most important aspect of it all.

Luckily, it isn’t hard to get Lisa on board. She hadn’t texted or called him while she was out of town, and Dean was too occupied with Cas to think about it in his own right, but when he calls and tells her he has something special planned, she enthusiastically agrees to go along with it. It gives Dean more hope than he’ll ever admit aloud, and he takes it as a good omen on the date’s behalf.

Once Cas has triple-confirmed that everything will be in place, Dean heads out, not eager to overthink. He drops by Lisa’s apartment to pick her up and then drives them out to the park, giving her minimal details on the way. She’s curious about what he’s up to, but when Dean only grins and says, “It’s a surprise,” she smiles right back at him, and lets him have his fun.

It’s easy. Natural. The paranoia which has been gripping Dean since he saw the Facebook posts from the wedding finally eases.

Lisa’s face, when she eventually sees the hot air balloon that waits for them at the park, is priceless.

“Dean Winchester,” she says breathlessly, staring up at the huge, red-and-white-striped balloon, “did you really do this? For me?”

“I know you’ve always wanted to ride in one,” Dean says back with a grin. He slips his arm around her waist and presses a kiss into her hair. “I pulled a few strings. We’ve got it for a few hours, and then we’ll have a picnic. How does that sound?”

Lisa turns to look at him, arms threading up around his neck. “Is it an anniversary?” she asks, partially teasing, but with just enough genuine worry that Dean can’t help but laugh. He gets a flick to the back of his head for it, and she chastises, “Don’t laugh at me, I need to know! What’s the occasion? No matter what strings you pulled, this couldn’t have been easy to arrange.”

Dean shrugs. A snap of Cas’ fingers really _was_ easy enough to arrange—not that Lisa needs to know that. “No occasion,” he answers with an easy grin. “I just love you. Isn’t that reason enough to do something crazy?”

Lisa smiles, soft and sweet, but the expression doesn’t reach her eyes. At first, Dean thinks he’s imagining the shadow he sees pass through her gaze, but then those brown eyes slide away from his own, and Lisa shakes her head, almost looking wistful.

“You’re too good for me, Dean,” she says softly.

Dean doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t agree with it, but he’s not sure what sort of counterargument the statement calls for, so he says nothing.

The man attending to the hot air balloon greets them warmly when they approach, and ushers them into the basket to begin their voyage. Lisa stays near him for the ascent, but she moves to the other side of the basket before long, and gets caught up in a conversation with the man operating the balloon. He’s mostly a silent presence—Dean wonders who the hell he is and how Cas found him—but he seems kind, and looks to be genuinely enthusiastic about explaining the ins and outs of the contraption he’s operating to someone willing to listen. Dean follows along for a bit, but he loses interest far sooner than Lisa does, and winds up staring out over the horizon.

He may not be a fan of heights, but he has to admit—it’s pretty.

Even if it does also make his stomach turn. And leaves a hint of a cold sweat in his palms. Airplanes may be flying death traps, but hell, at least they have _walls_.

Lisa continues chatting with the operator even as their time in the air comes to an end. And as they make their descent from the clouds, Dean spots him—a lone figure on the field below them, tan skin standing stark against the shorn, green grass. Even from their height, Dean would recognize the shape of him anywhere. His heart clenches.

 

 

Once again, he finds himself feeling inordinately guilty. Cas has been good to him, and hell, Dean would even call him his friend—but that doesn’t mean he needs to feel bad for spending time with his _girlfriend_.

So maybe he likes Cas. Maybe he could, potentially, _like_ like Cas. He won’t say otherwise. Cas is attractive. And sweet. And adorably clueless about a lot of things. But regardless of all of that, Dean loves Lisa. He was with Lisa before Cas came around. Lisa will be the one who _stays_ around. Not the magical creature that Dean pretty much accidentally, temporarily enslaved.

And that, really, is the main point that Dean needs to remember. As master of the lamp, he’s nothing more than Cas’ boss, the man holding his leash. No matter how comfortable they’re quickly becoming in each others’ presences, it wouldn’t make sense for Cas to view him with any sort of genuine affection.

He doesn’t feel guilty because he’s neglecting the genie (he’s not), or for not including him in this date (there’s no need to). He doesn’t feel guilty because he’s abusing his new friend, who seems to be a genuinely good person, to get help with his girlfriend (because that’s not _really_ what’s happening, right?).

Dean just feels guilty for not having a proper way to thank Cas. That’s all it boils down to.

He’s sure that’s it.

“What are you looking at?” Lisa asks, curling in close to his side as she finally makes her return. Her skin is noticeably cold where their arms press together; Dean doesn’t think before wrapping her up in his own arms, guarding her against the high-altitude winds.

“Nothin’, babe,” he says, and when he looks again, it’s true. The field is empty, Cas gone—if he was ever there at all.

Lisa hums. She turns in his hold and presses a kiss against his jaw, then another to the corner of his mouth. “If you say so,” she says with amusement. Then, a hand cupping his cheek to get his undivided attention, “Are you going to kiss me, or what?”

Dean does. While they’re kissing, he doesn’t have to think, be it about their height, or what waits for him down on the ground.

 

 

After the date, things don’t resolve themselves quite as well as Dean was hoping, and it doesn’t make _sense_.

Lisa seems to have forgiven him for the mix-up over Yosemite and her brother’s wedding, which is good. What’s less good, however, is the fact that when they were lying together in her bed the morning after their date, naked and tangled in crisp, white sheets, she seemed to regularly get caught up in her thoughts, sometimes while staring at Dean, other times not. Whatever it was that was on her mind, she wouldn’t tell him. He would ask, of course, but each time, she would only smile and say, “It’s nothing.”

Normally, Dean would have no trouble believing that. But it happened all that morning, and has only gotten worse in the few days that have passed since. She’s bright and bubbly when they spend time together, but when she thinks he’s not looking, she gets that same, pensive look on her face.

It worries him too much to bear asking what it means.

And to make matters worse, Cas is also different after the date.

Beforehand, they were on their way to establishing an easy sort of friendship—or so Dean thought. But now? Now, Cas is quiet. Introspective. He talks when spoken to, but he doesn’t sass Dean as much as he did when Dean first released him from his lamp. He doesn’t hang around to watch over Dean’s shoulder as he works. Hell, it doesn’t even seem like he wears his pants as low on his hips as he had been doing previously, and isn’t that a confusing detail to notice.

In this weird middle ground, lacking equally in antagonism and comradery, Dean doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to act, or how to fix whatever mistake he seems to have made, and as a result, the situation between them only gets more awkward. Cas acts like a teenager with a grudge, Dean acts like a kicked dog, and just like that, the apartment becomes a warzone of mutual misery and resentment.

And Dean doesn’t even _understand it_. He’s convinced that that’s the worst part.

Thankfully, a new job finds its way onto Dean’s desk just in time for him to dive into avoidance head first, and his next few days pass in a blissful blur of text and research. He goes at it with an intensity he typically reserves for personal projects, to the point that his reading glasses—rarely used, only brought out when he can’t get around it—become a permanent feature, the indent of the frame etched into his nose even when he retires to his bedroom at the end of every night.

He does the mental equivalent of working himself to the bone, and just like after a physical workout, the exhaustion of it leaves him feeling purged. Refreshed. His confusion with Lisa, his confusion with Cas—it all fades to the background. He’d much rather stress over work than relationships, anyway. He talks to each of them only when spoken to, which works because Lisa knows and Cas learns what Dean’s work can be like, so aside from agreeing to a lunch date with Lisa a few days in advance, he starts to exist entirely in his own bubble.

He’s taken completely by surprise, then, when Cas abruptly pulls a one-eighty from his moping. The genie corners him in the middle of a well-deserved lunch break some number of days into his translation haze, six feet of solid muscle and tanned skin storming in with enough intent to have Dean freezing in place.

Considering they haven’t really talked since he made his first wish, he has no idea what to expect. He doesn’t think he can be blamed for being moderately terrified.

“I want to go to the museum.”

The non-sequitur throws Dean even more, and he gapes at Cas for longer than he should. Too long, as it turns out, because it gives Cas time to stare at _him_. The genie gives him one of those soul-searching stares that’s guaranteed to make Dean squirm and, as could only have been expected, his face heats even before he gets Cas’ next bout of commentary.

Commentary which turns out to be, “How often do you wear those glasses?”

“Um.” Dean’s voice comes dangerously close to cracking, so he clears his throat. _Disuse_ , he tells himself. “Just when I’m doing a lot of work. They help with eye strain.”

Whether Cas is satisfied with that answer or not, Dean has no idea. “You wear them well,” is the reply he gets, “They suit your face.” And then, before Dean can fully process what he’s pretty sure was a compliment, “Will you take me to the museum?”

It takes Dean a good amount of spluttering (because his glasses _suit his face_? _What the fuck_?), but he eventually manages to nod. He doesn’t trust his voice enough to speak, and he’s too baffled to even try to deny Cas.

But seeing as his agreement earns him the brightest smile he’s ever seen from Cas, Dean isn’t altogether too upset.

Cas turns out to be insistent about going to the museum, to the degree that he steps in against the table and pushes Dean’s laptop closed, then starts neatly stacking up loose papers and scattered books. Thankfully, he has the foresight in his tidying to stack the papers in a way that Dean will be able to unstack again to resume his work, and the books all have their pages marked before they’re closed and relocated. Every move the genie makes is rhythmic and precise, and Dean finds himself mesmerized by the movements of his hands, the contrast of the silver bands around his wrists against tan skin.

That is, until Cas pointedly clears his throat and says, “Are you going to get ready to go, or do I have to do that for you as well?”

To which Dean turns red and scurries out of the kitchen without a backwards glance.

And then immediately resolves not to think about anything save the impending field trip for the rest of the day, for obvious reasons.

Luckily, as he’s changing into clothes suitable for visiting what is essentially one of his places of work, he has a realization which makes it easy to expel all thoughts of strong hands and glasses and confusing compliments. An important realization. A realization that has Dean going still, and then immediately despairing his fate.

He’s taking Cas into a public space, which means…

He can’t let Cas be arrested for public indecency.

Dean groans and drops his head into his hands. He’s going to have to wrangle Cas into real clothes.

Fuck his life.

 

 

Cas is captivated from the instant they walk through the museum’s front door.

It’s a bit awkward getting him past the front desk, considering his odd clothing combination and wild hair makes him look like some homeless loon Dean pulled off the street. The only consolation is that he’s at least wearing _some_ kind of shirt for the first time ever, as Dean reminds himself several times over, even if that shirt is a loosely-buttoned, red-and-black-checked flannel with nothing underneath it. It can’t look that bad, though, because Dean flashes his employee badge and scans in one of his guest passes for Cas, and ultimately, they’re not given any trouble.

And then Cas is off, practically running as he follows the signs to the _Ancient World_ wing.

Dean, dragged along by strong fingers wrapped around the crook of his elbow, doesn’t have it in him to complain. His smile refuses to be stifled.

Ancient World soon becomes the Middle East, which in turn melts into Asian history, then jumps to Native American history after that. Every corner they turn leads them farther and farther away from their initial destination, but Dean has spent enough time in the museum to have a passing knowledge of a lot of exhibits, so he’s more than happy to show it off to someone who’s equally as enthusiastic as he is. Sure, he mostly ends up reading a lot of the plaques aloud to fill in the gaps, but whether he has his own knowledge or steals what’s posted, Cas looks at him like he’s hung the moon anyway.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Dean has logic enough to know that he shouldn’t feed off of that attention as much as he does. It won’t do well to get used to it. Cas is just excited to be in a museum for the first time. That’s all.

But, well. Dean is perfectly happy to keep his logic suppressed for the time being.

Although Dean continues to brandish his (limited) knowledge and (far more reliable) reading abilities in equal measure, Cas proves himself to be a wealth of knowledge in his own right. He doesn’t often have knowledge about the specific artifacts on display, but the genie has been around long enough to have plenty of other insight extending well beyond the quick snatches given on a plaque. He talks about history from the perspective of someone who has witnessed it, and regales Dean with all sorts of stories, relevant and otherwise, as they walk between exhibits.

Dean is so enthralled by Cas’ storytelling abilities that he doesn’t see the change in the genie’s pattern coming. They reach a glass case showing off religious artifacts, which bears a sign pertaining to flood stories of various cultures and Noah’s Ark. When Cas points at it, Dean glances toward him, already bracing himself to have everything he knows be shaken by a genie who apparently knows too much for his own good. Except, instead of smiling like he has been preceding every tale so far, Cas is incredibly serious, face devoid of emotion.

“Dean,” the genie says, and Dean frowns at the severity in his voice. It throws him for a second—what the hell went wrong? Did Dean say something wrong, _do_ something wrong? If there was—fuck, if this is on him, he doesn’t even know what he’s going to do. He sucks in a sharp, anxious breath, but Cas cuts him off before he can ask what’s wrong.

“Where did Noah keep his bees?”

Dean blinks, and the pressure previously mounting in his chest dissipates all at once.

Nothing wrong, then, thank god, but he’s so relieved by that fact alone that it takes him another few moments to process what Cas _did_ say. He runs the words back through to make sure he heard them correctly, and his nose scrunches in confusion. “Um. Is that a real question? I don’t know, did he _have_ bees?”

A brief flash of exasperation crosses Cas’ features, but when it passes, he gives Dean the smallest, yet smuggest smile imaginable. “In the _ark hives_ , Dean.”

Dean stares. And then stares a bit more. And then bursts out laughing, far louder than is probably considered to be appropriate in a museum, but he doesn’t give a damn, because Cas made a _joke_. An actual one, with intent, and it’s so unexpected that it’s automatically the best joke Dean has ever heard.

When Dean finally regains the ability to breathe, he wipes tears from his eyes and finds Cas grinning at him. Smugness and pride practically radiate off of him, now that he’s made Dean laugh, and right then, Dean knows that it’s game on.

They start trading puns at every display they encounter, and then giggling over them like kids. Some are clever, others are less so, but even the bad ones are funny in their own right. Even though they finally reach a section of the museum Dean has actually contributed to, the seriousness of actual history is long gone.

Dean’s joke about guillotines and severance pay goes over Cas’ head (which is a damn shame), but he full-on _snorts_ when Dean says that the Normans conquered England because of their strength in _arrow_ _dynamics_ , which might just be the best thing to come of it all. (Even if he does get swatted on the shoulder hard enough to sting for laughing at Cas in response.)

As they’re finally drifting their way toward the front of the museum, a vague plan to get lunch at one of Dean’s favorite restaurants having been established somewhere in between the barrage of dumb puns, Cas comes up with one final one which undoes Dean just as thoroughly.

“What is a volcano’s favorite historical document?”

“What?”

“The Magma Carta.”

Dean is in stitches for the rest of the walk out of the museum, still laughing even when they reach the sidewalk outside. It reminds Dean of another joke, so he counters through his lingering chuckles, “Hey, Cas—what did one volcano say to the other one?”

Cas’ lips twist up, then tilts his head in a silent bid for Dean to continue. Dean flashes him a dazzling grin.

“I _lava_ you.”

Some of the humor drains from Cas’ face at that, and for a brief moment, he looks nearly… awestruck. Or maybe nervous. Dean’s not exactly an expert at reading emotions, but there’s _something_ in those blue eyes, and it captivates Dean just as much as it confuses him. He opens his mouth to ask what the look is for, but before he can, another voice interrupts them.

“Dean?”

Dean whips around so quickly that it threatens to make him dizzy, and stares like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Lis. Hey. Um.”

Lisa raises an eyebrow. Her lips are quirked into a faint smile, but there’s a tightness in her shoulders, and her eyes dart toward Cas where he lurks behind Dean.  “Hey yourself. Did you just come out of the museum, or were you going in? Who’s your friend? I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Oh, uh—” _Shit shit shit_. Dean reaches for Cas and claps him on the shoulder, thinking fast as he pulls the genie forward for an actual introduction. “Babe, this is Cas, an old friend from high school. He’s in town for a couple days, and he wanted to see what I do, so I brought him here to show off. I figured I earned a day’s break from the assignment I’m on.” Then, to keep up appearances, he tightens his hand where it’s come to rest on Cas’ shoulder and gives the reverse of, “Cas, this is my girlfriend, Lisa.”

Cas takes a half step forward, putting himself in the space between Dean and Lisa so that he can extend a hand in greeting. Dean’s hand leaves his shoulder when he moves, but they’re still standing so close that Dean swears he can feel the warmth the genie exudes even without actual contact.

“It’s lovely to meet you,” Cas says, the image of formality and politeness—which is hilarious, considering Dean is ninety-nine percent sure the genie learned his manners from a TV show. He can’t see Cas’ face, but Dean trusts that his expression matches that politeness.

Dean can’t quite see Lisa’s face, either, thanks to the way Cas moved in (the guy’s excited to be meeting new people, apparently), but he can tell that they shake hands, and he hears his girlfriend reply, “Likewise.” By the time Dean moves back around Cas, the two are staring at one another, like they’re sizing each other up. It makes Dean feel weird, so he clears his throat and draws both of their eyes.

“So, what brought you to this side of town? You didn’t have work today?”

Lisa makes a face, a number of emotions flitting across her features before wry amusement settles in. “I guess the sudden appearance of a friend from high school makes it easy to forget about lunch plans, huh? I wondered if something was up when you didn’t answer your phone.”

“My—” His hands fly to his pockets, but no matter how much he pats at the various places, his phone refuses to materialize. How the hell did he not notice that? But, even more important than his phone— “Shit. I didn’t even think about what day it is, I’ve been so damn busy. I’m so sorry, Lis. We can do lunch still, Cas can…”

Dean stalls, his eyes sliding toward the genie. It isn’t fair to Cas to ditch him. For all the tension that’s been between them since his first wish, they’ve had a good day today. The museum has been _fun_ , probably the most fun that Dean has had in months. Not to mention the fact that he also told Cas he’d take _him_ to lunch. Technically, Lisa had him on reservation first, but how in the hell is he supposed to choose?

Cas stares right back at Dean. There’s a slump to his shoulders, a pout on his lips, and Dean knows right then and there that he can’t tell him to go home. He looks so damn _earnest_ , and Dean can’t tell him no.

The decision must show on Dean’s face in some way, because Cas lights back up. His eyes crinkle in a smile, and he turns back toward Lisa at the same time that Dean does.

Lisa, who’s evidently been watching them intently during the interaction. Dean tells himself that it’s the chill of a sudden breeze that has his cheeks going red, not embarrassment.

“You mind if Cas tags along?” He puts as much of an apology behind the words as he can, and makes an effort to look contrite. He can’t say he’s eager to be mixing Cas and Lisa like this—hell, practically everything in him protests doing just that—but it’s better than the alternative.

Surprisingly, Lisa smiles. “It’s alright, Dean. I know you’re overwhelmed right now, I won’t interrupt your guy-time. You guys go ahead and have lunch, we can reschedule, okay?”

It sounds too good to be true. Dean bites the inside of his cheek. “We don’t have to reschedule, I told you we could get lunch. I don’t know how I forgot my phone today, I really am sorry—”

“ _Dean_.” Once she’s interrupted his budding panic, Lisa touches a hand to Dean’s shoulder, reassuring him through the contact. She looks more relaxed than she had when she first arrived, and it’s startlingly easy for him to mirror that now that she’s encouraging him to do so. “It’s fine, I promise. I’m not upset. I was going to have to cut out on you early, anyway. Cas will provide you more entertainment.”

Dean’s still hesitant, but he doesn’t have a lot of choice but to agree. He sighs and says, “Yeah, okay. If you’re sure. We’ll reschedule.”

Lisa smiles again, then changes the subject. “You’re coming to my parents’ house on Sunday, right? I know my birthday is midweek, but the weather should be nice on Sunday, so they want to host. I think you should have gotten an evite, but I’ll text you the details, alright?”

Dean nods dimly. Lisa’s birthday. Birthday _party_. It always comes around faster than he’s expecting, so it figures that this year is no different. He’ll have to figure out his plan for the occasion in a hurry.

It’s on his mind as they make their goodbyes, half-formed ideas rising and falling too rapidly to even make an impression. What could he wish for? How does he top the expectations set by his own date to make Lisa’s birthday as memorable as possible?

As soon as she’s gone, though, Cas hooks his fingers around Dean’s elbow. He smiles, asks about lunch, starts guiding them in the appropriate direction, and just like that, girlfriend-stress eases back away from Dean’s mind. It takes a few minutes, but by the time they’re walking into the pub Dean previously decided on for lunch, the two of them are back to their easy rapport from the museum. They eat, they joke around, Cas makes the most disgusted face when he tries Dean’s beer—all in all, it’s good.

It’s a nice calm before the storm.

 

 

With only a few days available to him, it isn’t a surprise that Dean’s worry about Lisa’s birthday comes back with a vengeance. His day off with Cas was a great break from reality, but overall, it doesn’t change much. He still has the end of his work project to trudge through, and now, if anything, his situation with Lisa is worse than ever.

She may not have been upset with him for forgetting about lunch, but he still _did it_. And the week before her birthday, too; no matter how great the date with the hot air balloon turned out to be, this is enough to have him in the doghouse for the foreseeable future.

Between forgetting about her brother’s wedding and now blowing her off for lunch, there’s no way Dean _isn’t_ going to be in hot water. Lisa may have had a smile on her face when she parted ways from him and Cas, but he _knows_ there’s more to it than that. He knows her, and while she’s not petty or one to hold a grudge, there is always more going on in her mind than she lets people see.

Which means if he doesn’t redeem himself, he’s fucked. He’s going to be stuck waiting for the other shoe to drop for god knows how long, and when it happens, it could very well prove catastrophic.  

So he’s going to be damn sure he redeems himself, in every way imaginable.

He scribbles ideas for a birthday gift down on a piece of scratch paper between bouts of work, until he finally finishes the latter, and is left plagued only by the former. He’s at the point with it that he isn’t even _relieved_ to be finished with his work—he’s only glad to be free of it so that he has more time to dedicate to what he’s mentally dubbing The Lisa Problem.

Which is how Cas ends up finding him early on Saturday morning, huddled in the living room, already halfway through a pot of coffee and staring at his mess of notes like they’re a sacred text he can’t quite decipher.

“Are you still working?” the genie asks, settling on the couch next to Dean. He cranes his neck to try to get a look at the open notebook page, but even without looking up, Dean can tell that he frowns at the chicken scratch he sees. “I thought you were close to being done?”

Dean waves a hand. He flips his pen between his fingers, rolling it across his knuckles, then returns it to its proper position and scribbles _perfume_ off of his list. “I emailed that all in last night. Now I’m just trying to figure out Lisa’s birthday present. You wouldn’t happen to—”

When he finally raises his eyes, Dean’s brain just about short circuits.

“Is that my robe?”

“Hm?” Cas glances down at himself, feigning innocence as if he somehow _forgot_ that he put on an _article of clothing_. And of his own volition, no less. He plucks at the soft fabric. “Oh, yes. I like how it feels against my skin. It’s very comfortable.”

Dean’s mouth has gone completely dry, and he stares for longer than he should. It’s just… such a strange thing to wrap his head around, is all. It’s distracting. For completely normal reasons.

He wrenches his attention back to his idea list and clears his throat. “Great. Glad you’re comfy. Now, you got any ideas for birthday gifts for the love of my life, or what? Because nothing I’ve got so far seems to cut it.”

And so far, he’s come up with a lot.

Hawaiian vacation, too out of the way. Ski trip, too try-hard. Spa certificate, too generic. A necklace holds potential, but her sister gave her one once which she never takes off, so Dean would have to outdo _that_ somehow. Earrings are moot for almost the same reason, only it’s her grandmother’s earrings she never takes out, which is even more impossible to top than a necklace from her sister.

Perfume, of course, would have been as lame and impersonal as an Amazon gift card. And Dean Winchester does better than that.

It’s probably not a good thing that the most stock he has in any idea so far is _car_. (Because that _has_ to be too ostentatious, right?)

When Cas fails to respond, Dean looks up again, this time with a frown. “Ideas?”

Cas is stone-faced. He plucks at his stolen robe and doesn’t meet Dean’s eyes. “How should I know? I’m only the means of getting you this gift, am I not? Aside from that, it’s not as though I am brimming with experience pertaining to love and longing.”

Dean makes a face at him. “What the hell crawled up your ass and died this morning? I’m just asking for friendly input, you don’t have to be a prick. I didn’t even say that it has to be from a wish.”

The genie thaws by a few degrees, then ultimately relents and drops to the couch beside Dean. “Fine. Let me see what you have, then.”

Relief bursts from Dean’s chest in a sigh. He passes his list over, trying not to fidget as Cas scrutinizes its contents.

A few long moments tick by, then Cas makes a sound that Dean can only call _disgruntled_. It’s not reassuring, and his shoulders slump.

“I can tell that you’re not confident in any of these,” Cas comments. He points to an item in the middle of the list, an eyebrow arched. “You wrote ‘stupid’ next to ‘backpacking trip’, and beside ‘car’, you have three separate models listed, which seem to all be very dissimilar. You need to commit to something.”

Dean groans. “That’s the _problem_ , man, _I know_. But I don’t know what the hell to do.”

Cas hums, attention drifting back toward the list in his hands. “Well…” He wets his lips. “What is it you hope to accomplish with this gift? Perhaps if you have an ambition, it will be easier for you to choose something that aligns with that ambition?”

“Oh. That’s not a bad idea.” Dean sits back and tries to think about that. His _ambition_. Not what his gift should be, but what effect it should have. The date with the hot air balloon was designed to be fun and exciting. It makes sense for this occasion to be poised to go in a certain direction, too.

“I want her to know that I’m serious about her,” he says. He doesn’t quite intend to say it aloud, but once it occurs to him, it comes out anyway. “I want her to know that she’s it for me, even if I’m a mess sometimes. I love her.”

Cas is quiet. Then, just when Dean begins to suspect that he isn’t going to get an answer, the genie sighs and says, “You want to marry her.”

Dean’s stomach swoops. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Cas sets the idea list on the coffee table and drags his palm across the stubbled line of his jaw. “I might have an idea, then,” he tells Dean, voice low and hesitant, “but it will cost you a wish. So if you are willing to pay that price…”

The suggestion of using a wish puts a lump in Dean’s throat, which he resolutely ignores. “Tell me what you’ve got.”

And so Cas does. He lays out a plan and gives Dean just enough supporting logic to sell it, and Dean immediately knows it’s the best possible option. Dean takes it and runs with it, and Cas drifts off to let him dig into details. He sketches and researches and does everything he can to ensure that, like his first wish, this one will turn out perfectly.

Cas helps where he can, but for the most part, keeps out of Dean’s way. He brings coffee and sandwiches into the living room while Dean remains absorbed, which pulls an appreciative smile out of Dean, then fades into the background to allow Dean to work.

Late in the evening, Dean sits back, tucks his pencil behind his ear, and surveys his work. He thinks he’s got everything worked out. It’s perfect, and hopefully Lisa will love it.

He calls for Cas.

 

 

Dean is as careful with the second as he was with the first. He takes his time, gets every detail right. By all accounts, it should be perfect. 

And yet, he doesn't sleep well that night. Cas' words stick with him, reverberating through his skull for hours after they've been spoken and weighing heavily against his ribcage.

_“You have one wish remaining.”_

When he leaves for Lisa's party the following morning, the gift he carries with him is a heavier weight than it should be. The metal bites into his palm, a presence that can’t be ignored no matter how much he suddenly wishes he could. He slips it into his jacket pocket, but the burden only transfers, doesn’t dissipate.

Lisa’s birthday party should be as good a time as any for this, at least. While a barbecue at her parents’ house means he’s going to be making a spectacle in front of Lisa’s family and friends, at least there’s a setting, and an excuse to give a gift as big as this one.

This is what they need. This will be good for them. The ultimate step forward, the best way to show he’s in it for the long-haul, despite the mistakes he’s made recently.

The party is in full swing when he arrives. He can hear the swell of voices in the backyard as soon as he parks, the rumble of his Impala’s engine giving way to conversation and music and everything a good party should be. It very nearly makes Dean smile.

Nearly.

He follows a trail of signs over to the side gate, and tries his best to shake off the funk that’s plaguing him as he enters the party in full. He sees Lisa’s stepmom before he sees Lisa herself, and greets her with a wide smile and a kiss to her cheek. She offers him a beer, which he takes for courage, then directs him over to Lisa where she stands on the opposite side of the yard, chatting with a few friends Dean recognizes as colleagues.

As he picks his way across the yard, he can’t help but feel like everyone he passes stares after him. There’s no reason for them to—it’s not like anyone could possibly _know_ that he’s about to take the biggest risk in his life—but that doesn’t stop him from thinking it, and paranoia is just as demoralizing as fact.

He feels like he could hurl, and maybe that’s a sign that he’s drinking his beer a little too quickly; he doesn’t want to think too hard about why this one gesture is making him anxious to his very core.

Lisa turns just as he approaches. Her smile doesn’t get rid of the pit of trepidation in Dean’s stomach, but it certainly helps to ease it. He smiles back, the tight set of his shoulders loosening ever so slightly.

“I was wondering when you’d show,” Lisa greets, her tone light and teasing. She stretches up to press a kiss to Dean’s cheek, and the friends she had been talking to fade away into the rest of the party to give them some space. “I was almost worried you were going to blow me off again.”

She’s still joking, the jab isn’t meant to start a war, but there’s still _just_ enough legitimate pressure behind the words that Dean winces. It tells him that she’s thinking about it, that she hasn’t put it out of her mind, that the air between them isn’t as clear as it looks in the light of the party around them. It’s a good thing that he came planning to grovel.

“Lisa.” He faces her directly, and drops his mostly-empty beer bottle to a nearby table so that he can put his hands on her shoulders. He’s a tactile person by nature, and it’s easy to fall back on that. Once he has her full attention, he smiles and ducks his face closer to her own. “That’s not going to happen again. Ever. You have my word on that.” He gives her a quick kiss, then adds, “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”

Her smile dims, and turns almost melancholic. “I know, Dean.”

It doesn’t seem like she does, though, and Dean frowns. Apparently, he’s in an even bigger hole than he thought.

“ _Lis_ ,” he says, more adamantly than the first time he’d said her name, “I mean it. I know I haven’t exactly done a great job of proving myself these last couple of weeks, but I’m _ready_ to prove myself.”

Lisa is entirely still beneath his hands, and her expression is shuttered. It takes her a moment, but she eventually asks, deadly serious, “And how do you intend to do that?”

Dean swallows hard against the sudden lump which has risen in his throat. “Well, actually, I—”

At that exact moment, her stepmom calls from across the yard, “Lisa, honey? Do you and Dean want to come over here for some pictures?”

Lisa glances toward her. Dean slides his hands off of her shoulders, and catches one of her hands instead.

“Lis, wait.”

“Dean—”

“Let me give you your present first. You’ll get what I’m saying, okay? About proving myself.”

She gives him a calculating look, and while she still doesn’t seem convinced, she doesn’t turn him down, either. He clings to that latter fact.

Lisa’s stepmom calls for them again, but Dean ignores it. Lisa’s attention doesn’t waver, so he takes that as his cue to dig into his pocket for his gift. There’s too many people around, Lisa’s stepmom is beelining for them, there’s too much tension in the air for the mood to be right, but fuck, Dean needs to do it before he loses his chance.

“I know there’s probably a better way I could be doing this,” he tells her—it’s always better to make the excuse before it’s necessary—and he flashes a paper-thin smile. His fingers find the gift, fallen to the bottom corner of his coat pocket, and close around it. He’s slow as he draws it out, nerves skyrocketing yet again. “But…”

Then he raises his hand up, brandishing the key ring and the pair of identical keys it holds.

“Happy birthday, Lis.”

Her stepmom, having just reached them, gasps. Her husband then turns to investigate and swears under his breath, and by that point, everyone in the damn yard has turned to ogle them. Dean swallows thickly, struggling not to let the weight of their stares break his courage.

Lisa looks the most shocked of them all. She looks at the keys, then at Dean, then back again—and then she takes a shaking breath and asks, brow pinched like she already knows the answer but can’t quite believe it, “What are those?”

Dean shrugs in an effort to look nonchalant. “Keys.”

“To?”

“A house.” He hastily digs his phone out of his pocket with his other hand and tabs open his photos. He only has one of the house, a drive-by he’d done on his way to the party, but it’s enough to show that it’s a gorgeous house. Plenty of room for growth. Perfect to share. He turns the screen toward Lisa and tacks on, perhaps redundantly, “A house for you. Us. I signed the papers this morning.”

He signed papers, Cas snapped his fingers—same thing, really.

Someone in the crowd of onlookers whispers a fervent, “ _Oh my god_.” Meanwhile, the color seems to have drained from Lisa’s face. Before Dean can figure out what to do about that, though, Lisa’s lips press thin, and she says, voice abruptly sounding too loud in the hushed back yard, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Dean’s stomach plummets to his feet, but he nods regardless. He follows after his girlfriend as she leads the way into the house, where they end up tucked away in the corner of the dining room, far out of the main path through the house where anyone might accidentally interrupt them. Even with distance between them and the back yard, however, Dean swears he can hear the faint buzz of the gossip they inevitably left in their wake. It had begun practically the moment they stepped into the house; Dean can only imagine what it must be like out in that shark tank now.

Lisa folds her arms tight across her chest. “You bought a house.”

Dean offers her the keys again, unsure of what else there is for him to do. “Neither of our apartments are the long-term kind. I figured, if we wanted to…”

“If we wanted to move in together,” Lisa finishes. When Dean nods, she sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose, but she still doesn’t take the keys. “Dean, honey—don’t you think we should have started with sharing an _apartment_ before committing to a _house_?”

“Uh. Maybe,” Dean concedes, and fuck, he feels like an idiot. Why did he think this was a good idea? He wets his lips. “I just—I love you. And I want to spend my life with you. I had an opportunity to make that a real possibility, and I took it.”

That argument finally gets Lisa to soften. The stern set of her shoulders loosens, and the barrier that is her crossed arms turns a little less hostile. It makes for a good shift in the overall mood, but it doesn’t do all that much to lessen the knot in Dean’s stomach.

“Dean…” She sighs and shakes her head. “I need to think about this, and right now isn’t the time for that. I know this isn’t what you wanted to happen, here, and I’m sorry about that, but… It’s big. So we can talk about it later. Alright?”

Dean drops his gaze to the floor and nods. She starts to back away, turning to leave, but stops when he holds out his hand. The key ring hangs from the tip of his index finger.

“For when you think about it,” he explains. He keeps his eyes down. “I’ll, uh. Text you the address. If you want to go look at it.”

A beat passes. Just when he’s starting to think she’s going to turn down the offer, Lisa takes the keys from him. She leaves before he has time to show his relief.

Dean stands there for a few moments after she’s gone, unable to move. His hands shake even after he’s clenched them into fists, the bite of pain of his nails cutting into his palms doing nothing to steady him.

Two wishes gone.

And the rift between himself and Lisa is wider than it’s ever been.

He doesn’t know if he’s still welcome at the party or not, but it doesn’t matter either way, because he’s not going to put up with the gossiping which he’s sure isn’t stopping any time soon. He never had a chance to settle in, so it’s easy to leave. Based on the way Lisa left him, he doubts he’ll be missed.

The drive home passes in a blur of too-bright lights and loud cars, both his own and others. He’s vaguely aware that he drives like a jackass, but he doesn’t care. He’s completely lost that ability.

Cas startles when Dean eventually storms into the apartment. He looks irritated for a fraction of a second, then surprised, and then, likely based on how distressed Dean knows he looks, concerned.

The genie is on his feet in an instant, ditching his book and his perch on the couch to close the distance between himself and Dean.

“Dean? Dean, what happened? Are you okay? Are you hurt? What’s going on?”

Dean shakes his head and swerves around him. He doesn’t want to talk about this. He doesn’t want to talk about the fact that his wish was most likely wasted. That his should-have-been-perfect gift was a curse in disguise, was just about rejected.

He’s frustrated by that. Of course he is. But more than that?

He’s terrified.

He goes to the kitchen, knowing instinctively that the alcohol waiting for him there will make it easier to cope. There’s an itch beneath his skin that will only be helped by violence or booze, and he knows which option he prefers.

A coffee mug which had the misfortune of being left on the counter still ends up taking the brunt of his anger, though, regardless of his preference of booze to violence. A little bit of destruction is still cathartic, after all. The sound of the ceramic shattering against the tile is satisfying enough to make it worthwhile.

He thinks he hears Cas grumbling under his breath, but either it’s too low to hear, or it’s not English—Dean is too busy pulling a bottle of whiskey out of the cabinet over the fridge to bother determining which it is.

It isn’t until after he’s poured himself a glass, drained it, then poured another that Cas speaks to him again.

“I’m assuming that it didn’t go as you hoped, then.”

Dean grunts in affirmation. The rest of his second glass burns its way down his throat. He doesn’t know why he’s even bothering with the glass at all—it’s not as though he needs to preserve any of his dignity right now—so he forgoes pouring out another refill in favor of taking his next drink straight from the bottle.

He thinks his surprise is justified when, a few swigs later, Cas sets another glass in front of him. Dean squints up at him, but before he can give the genie shit for making such a passive-aggressive attempt to regulate his alcohol consumption, Cas says simply, “Might as well share.”

Dean stares for a moment, then fills the glass. Cas inclines his head in silent thanks, and from there on out, they drink in solidarity.

Cas, of course, sips, while Dean makes an effort to drown himself.

At the rate he’s drinking, it isn’t long before Dean’s sense of reality begins to blur. Time stops holding meaning, and when he finally starts to talk, his tongue is loosened enough for his filter to be nonexistent. For the most part, he thinks he talks about Lisa, but he can’t be sure about any details beyond that. He can’t be sure about any details at all, actually, because other than a few random snippets, his memory ends up blank.

And yet, when he wakes up in the morning, he’s wearing sleep-appropriate clothes, and is tucked securely into his bed. Even without a solid memory to fall back on, he’s fairly certain he knows exactly how he got to be there.

He lays there for a long while, thinking himself in circles around it.  

 

 

Lisa doesn’t call. Dean texts, and she doesn’t text back.

He doesn’t know how long it will take her to _think about this_ , but he’s confident it can’t take more than a day. She has the house keys, and she knows where the house is—surely that’s enough to convince her that he’s being genuine. That he’s _serious_.

He repeats that like a mantra, hoping against hope that he can somehow convince himself of it. It’s becoming an increasingly difficult task.

The first day passes in a haze of anxiety. The second goes in much the same way, albeit with a lot more self-loathing.

The way he avoids Cas definitely doesn’t help anything.

But the crux of it is, he doesn’t know what to do _but_ avoid Cas. After their night of drinking, Dean feels too raw and exposed to trust himself around the genie any more. The fact that he’s missing time between sharing his whiskey and waking up in a bed he _knows_ he didn’t get in himself is too much to cope with, and so instead of coping, he chooses avoidance. He goes out on unexplained errands to stay out of his apartment and makes himself look busy with work whenever he’s there.

It works, right up until it doesn’t. Cas corners him on his third day of moping, stopping him before he can leave the apartment.

Or, more accurately, stopping him _from_ leaving the apartment.

Dean knows the genie’s plan as soon as he sees the empty hook by the front door.

“ _Cas_ ,” he calls back into the apartment, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration, “where the hell are my keys?”

When he doesn’t get an answer, he’s forced to retrace his steps toward the living room and seek the bastard out. Cas is nowhere to be seen, so he cautiously ventures further into the room—

And then promptly finds himself shoved up against the nearest wall by a wall of solid muscle.

“Cas, what the _fuck_ —”

Cas covers Dean’s mouth with his palm and silences his protests with a glare. “I’m tired of your games, Dean,” the genie says. The deep timbre of his voice seems lower than usual, which only adds to the aura of irritation radiating off of him. Dean shivers. “You’re not leaving again. Not until we’ve talked. Why are you doing this?”

Dean’s responding, “Fuck off,” doesn’t make it past the hand over his mouth. From the way Cas arches an eyebrow, though, the sentiment is clear no matter how muffled it is.

“We’ll stay just like this for as long as is necessary. You know exactly what I mean, and I’m tired of not understanding what you’re thinking. That’s changing now.”

Dean glares. Cas stares right back at him, impassive saved for the unchanging position of his eyebrow. Immovable object versus unstoppable force. Stubborn jackass versus inhuman douchebag.

Unfortunately, it isn’t long before Dean relents. The fight drains from him, and in return, Cas shifts his hand to press flat against the wall. Dean is still boxed-in, unable to escape, but at least he can _speak_.

Which is a gift he uses to say, “I don’t want to talk about this.”

Dean half expects his mouth to be covered again for the sass, but instead, Cas only rolls his eyes. “I deduced as much, yes, thank you. But, in case you didn’t notice, I don’t care.”

Dean nearly pouts at that. To think that _this_ is the guy he—

Well. He’s not quite sure how he wants to finish that sentence.

He sighs heavily, head tipping back against the wall. “Lisa’s giving me the silent treatment,” he tries next. It’s an answer of sorts, and not a lie. “It’s freaking me out and I’m trying not to think about it.”

“That doesn’t explain why you’re avoiding _me_ ,” Cas starts to say, but before he gets any further than that, an odd expression crosses his face. They’re standing so close together, nearly-touching in so many different places, that the change is impossible to miss. Cas squints at him. “Why is she giving you the ‘silent treatment’?”

“Because she didn’t like her gift, why else?”

Cas actually seems surprised by that. “You implied as much when you came home that night,” he says, and Dean barely withholds a wince at the reminder, “but I assumed there was more to it. Why didn’t she like it? It was a nice house, was it not?”

“It’s a _great_ house,” Dean snaps, because that’s not the _point_. “It’s just—it’s _complicated_ , Cas—”

“Did you go look at it? The house? Did Lisa look at it?”

“I mean, I showed her a picture—”

“Perhaps that’s not the same as actually looking at it—”

“What the hell does it matter if she looked at it?” Dean finally asks, his frustration reaching its breaking point. He’s more focused on the fact that Lisa flat-out doesn’t want to live with him, but Cas—

Dean’s thoughts come to a grinding halt. He squints at Cas, a new suspicion taking root in his mind.

“Is there something wrong with the house?”

Cas blinks. He leans back to put an additional few centimeters between them. “Why would there be something wrong with the house?”

“You’re not saying there’s _not_ ,” Dean retorts. The more he thinks about it, the more irritated he becomes. “You did something, didn’t you? You messed it up on purpose so that she’d turn me down.”

“What?” Cas’ nose scrunches in confusion. “Why on earth would I do that? You made a wish.”

“Yeah, and you clearly don’t like Lisa, so I wouldn’t be surprised.”

A quick flash of indignation crosses Cas’ face at that. “Are you truly accusing me of sabotaging you? Dean, regardless of how I f—”

The genie cuts himself off, a different kind of surprise now showing in his eyes. They stare at each other in silence, sharing breaths in the limited space between them.

Dean almost doesn’t ask, but he knows that he has to. There’s still a pressure in his chest, like the anger he’d felt only moments prior, yet fundamentally different in a way he doesn’t dare try to dissect.

“Regardless of what?”

Cas averts his eyes. He’s silent for too long, and he runs his tongue across the front of his teeth like he’s deep in thought. Dean almost doesn’t think he’s going to get an answer.

And then Cas squares his shoulders and returns his gaze to Dean’s. “Dean, I have tried to keep this to myself, but perhaps it is only fair if you know—”

There’s a knock on the apartment door. Cas cuts off.

They continue to stare at each other, still caught within the moment. Dean finds himself praying to the universe itself for whoever is on the opposite side of his door to go away.

But unfortunately, the person knocks again, and the moment finally breaks. Cas lets his hands fall away from the wall, and when he steps away, the absence leaves Dean cold.

“We’re not done here,” Dean says gruffly. He’s not very convincing even to himself.

What the hell is it only fair for him to know?

As soon as he pulls open the front door, the mystery of it ceases to matter.

“Lis. What—what are you doing here?”

Lisa replies with a tight smile. “We need to talk,” is all she says, then proceeds to skirt around Dean and walk into the apartment. In the back of Dean’s mind, he has a vague feeling that he should stop her, but her words— _those_ words—have left his ears ringing, and he forgets to even try.

“We need to talk about what?” he asks as he follows after his girlfriend, walking down the short hall toward the living room. He reaches out a hand to cup her elbow, hoping it will get her to stop and look at him. “Lis, what’s going on? Is this about the house?”

The simple touch works, and at the end of the hallway, Lisa whirls. The fire in her eyes is impossible to miss, and it sends Dean staggering back a step. “Yes, Dean, it’s about the house!” she snaps, hands balling into fists at her sides. “You _bought us a house_! Do you have any idea how crazy that is? Everyone at that party might have thought it was grand and romantic, but Dean, I _know you_. I know this is out of the ordinary for you. The hot air balloon thing was odd enough, I could tell that something was up, but this is taking that to a whole new level.”

Dean frowns. “Why does that mean that something’s _up_? Why is it crazy? It was your birthday, so I… I mean, I thought I could prove to you—”

“Prove to me.” Lisa’s voice is flat as she repeats the words, making it clear that she isn’t a fan of Dean’s word choice. “Houses aren’t birthday gifts, Dean,” she adds, turning to storm the rest of the way into the apartment, but at that point Dean isn’t quite listening, because she’s heading into the living room, and if she sees _Cas_ —

She’s already pissed off at him, clearly; the last thing Dean needs right now is the added friction that’s bound to follow the reveal that he has a shirtless ‘friend’ hanging around. His stomach drops when Lisa crosses into the next room, her gaze immediately sweeping around it—but the genie, surprisingly, is nowhere to be found. Dean only spends half a second wondering where he went before firmly reminding himself that it doesn’t matter.

The situation is better off without him.

Once she’s scanned the room, Lisa turns her eyes back on Dean. Everything about her is drawn tight, and the crease in her brow gives away just how displeased she is. “I know your financial situation, Dean,” she goes on. “I know you’re doing work that you love, but I also know what it pays, and even just looking at that house, I know it’s out of your price range. It’s out of our _combined_ price range.”

Dean tries not to wince at the subtle jab against his work, but doubts he succeeds. It _is_ work that he loves, every aspect of it. It’s not about money. He knows that’s not entirely what Lisa is saying, but it still stings.

He swallows thickly, and makes a bid to regain his composure.

“Baby, I don’t understand. I thought you’d like it. I thought it would be good for us.”

“ _Like it_?” Lisa repeats incredulously, her hands now going to her hips. “Dean, I don’t even know how you managed to buy it, it doesn’t matter if I _like it_. I’m not convinced that you didn’t pull something shady to get it, if I’m being honest, and I think that the fact that we’ve reached the point where I even have to ask myself that question is pretty telling.”

Dean recoils instantly. He may as well have been slapped, for the way that sentence stings him to his core. His hands feel numb. “Lis…”

She shakes her head. “Don’t _Lis_ me. I’ve been trying to psyche myself up to have this talk with you for long enough, you’re not going to distract me now that I’m finally doing it.” She takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, raises her chin. “I don’t think we’re good for each other anymore. It would be best for both of us if we started seeing other people.”

A cold weight settles in Dean’s stomach. He doesn’t know if his instincts are telling him to go _to_ Lisa or away from her—away from all of this, where he can hide from what she’s saying, hide from the fact that all of his plans backfired, and his wishes gave him the opposite of what he wanted to achieve.

He’s so torn that instead of moving in either direction, he finds himself rooted in place, unable to move, hardly able to breathe.

“Lis,” he manages to choke out, “Lis, don’t do this.”

Lisa thaws slightly, the hard line of her mouth turning soft. She steps forward, taking the issue of Dean’s immobility out of his hands, and ghosts the tips of her fingers over his jaw. She looks genuinely sad, now, and that’s so much worse than seeing her angry.

“Dean, baby… You deserve someone who wants you just as badly as you want them. Someone who will try just as hard as you do. You’ve been fighting so hard to keep me, and that’s why I have to let you go. I can’t keep being selfish, not when it’s keeping you from being happy.”

“You’re not—”

Lisa cuts off his objection with a finger over his lips. Her smile is a small, watery thing, which fades away completely when she stretches up to kiss his cheek. “Find someone who makes you happy, Dean,” she says softly. “Someone who _wants_ to settle in that house with you. Please.”

Dean nods dumbly. He has to do _something_ , after all, and letting the heat behind his eyes turn to tears isn’t an option. He’s rewarded with a brighter smile from Lisa, then a pat to his cheek before she withdraws from him completely. Permanently.

She pauses just before she leaves the room, her hand on the edge of the doorway and face only turned halfway back. Dean knows instinctively that she’s not stopping to change her mind, but that knowledge doesn’t stop his heart from constricting, doesn’t stop him from hanging on her every word.

And then she says, “Your friend. Cas. He may not be a bad place to start.”

She leaves without another word. The sound of the door closing behind her is deafening.

Dean feels empty inside.

_Selfish_ , she had said. That’s how she had described it. He loved her, and letting him continue to love her was _selfish_. Dean may be shell-shocked, devastated, even, but he’s not stupid. He knows what that means.

He just wonders how long it’s been since she first realized she didn’t love him in return.

He also wonders just how much of an influence his relationship with Cas had had on that realization.

That day at the museum. Maybe that wasn’t _it_ , but she’d certainly had it sitting in the back of her mind while she watched him interacting with Cas. She had probably realized so long before he even had a clue.

Dean has no idea how long he stands there in the middle of the living room before Cas emerges from wherever it is he was hiding. The genie’s footsteps are soft and measured as he hedges into the room, and slow to pierce through Dean’s trance.

“I tried not to eavesdrop, but I… I couldn’t help but overhear. While I know that wasn’t the result you wanted, it does seem like it may have been best for both parties.”

Dean hears the words, but at the same time, he doesn’t. He doesn’t listen. He doesn’t need to. His ears are ringing, and there’s nothing Cas’ platitudes can do for him.

“Dean.” A pause, and when Dean still doesn’t answer, “Dean, I’m sorry that this happened, but—”

Dean cuts him off with a hard press of lips, and a pair of rough hands in his hair. He feels Cas gasp into his mouth, but it’s something that Dean only barely processes; he’s operating on instinct and rage and pain and heartbreak and he doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore, but it doesn’t fucking _matter_.

Cas is here. Cas wants him, as Dean damn well knows. Lisa had even flat-out named him as Dean’s next stop. Dean, of course, just disagrees slightly with her assessment.

This is a very bad place to start.

It’s convenient that he’s currently incapable of caring.

While Cas’ lips are still parted from his gasp, Dean takes advantage and licks his way into the genie’s mouth. As it turns out, Cas runs just as warm there as he does externally, and Dean can’t stop himself from whimpering as he melts into him.

Considering how utterly pathetic the sound is, Dean really shouldn’t be surprised by the way Cas takes initiative afterwards. Instead of simply continuing to be the recipient of Dean’s kiss, Cas slides a hand into his hair, cradling the back of Dean’s skull and guiding the kiss along into something far more tender than what Dean started them off with. It’s sweet and gentle and makes Dean’s heart beat twice as fast as it already had been.

But no matter how badly a part of him wants to give into Cas’ gentleness, it isn’t what Dean needs right now.

He bites Cas’ lip just hard enough to draw a hiss from the genie, then withdraws from him completely. It earns him a confused, “Dean?” which in turn goes ignored as Dean wraps his fingers around the smooth silver of Cas’ cuff and drags him to the bedroom.

Once they’re there, Dean wastes no more time.

The entire wall seems to shake from the force of Dean shoving Cas up against it, yet not even then does the genie object. He’s nothing but yielding beneath Dean’s hands, warm and malleable, completely trusting. Maybe that’s why the light in his eyes is too much for Dean to look at. It fills him with too much guilt.

Thankfully, he has other things he can focus on. Like, for example…

The fabric of Cas’ pants is silky smooth beneath Dean’s fingers, and although the stitching between the flowing beige and the blue waistband protests when Dean yanks at it, it holds without actually ripping. Thankfully, they were already naturally riding low enough that Dean doesn’t have to pull very far to get Cas’ cock out, so he can leave the waistband around Cas’ thighs. It’s not important that they’re all the way gone, after all. So long as Dean has his objective in sight.

Cas’ cock is long and thick, and when Dean leans in to swipe his tongue across the head of the quickly-hardening length, he finds that he tastes clean. A bit salty, maybe, but otherwise pure in the most perfectly unnatural way.

Above him, Cas groans. The genie’s hands come to land in the sides of Dean’s hair, fingers flexing and tightening automatically. Dean subtly leans into them, granting approval, then after a quick wink directed upwards, he dives in and gets to work.

It’s been a while since Dean’s had a good dick in his mouth. The last time was before Lisa, for sure, but it was probably even a while before that. And that, of course, is why Dean needs this so badly. He needs not-Lisa. He needs change, a chance to clear his head, and right now, sucking Cas’ cock is exactly that. The heavy weight of it on his tongue, the pressure against the back of his throat, the soft grunts that punch past Cas’ lips—there’s nothing Lisa about any of it.

Cas is so very different than anyone Dean has been with before.

Before Dean has the chance to get Cas off, though, Cas starts tugging at his hair more insistently, and when Dean looks up, he finds him shaking his head, lips parted in bliss but a frown creasing his brow. “Dean, stop—Stop. Please.”

Dean does as he’s told, pulling off of Cas’ cock with an intentionally obscene _pop_. He ignores the twist of trepidation in his gut as he looks up at Cas, and does his best to look as debauched as possible in hopes of keeping control of the situation. “Problem, Cas?” he asks, voice rough from the work his throat has been doing.

Cas, at least, doesn’t seem unaffected by that. His chest heaves for a few long moments before he manages to find his tongue again, and when he does manage it, it’s to say, “I… want to pleasure you, as well. May I?”

He looks so damn earnest in asking that Dean couldn’t turn him down even if he wanted to. And it serves his purpose just as well, anyway. He nods, gets back to his feet, manhandles Cas toward the bed, and it’s all systems go again. With his mouth on Cas’, it’s easy to keep the genie from talking any more than he already has.

Dean gets Cas pinned to the mattress and grinds against him, drawing a whole new series of pleased sounds from the genie’s lips. While he keeps Cas occupied, it’s easy enough to get himself undressed and, after a quick reach over toward the drawer in his side table, it’s also easy to pour some lube out onto his fingers and start prepping himself. Cas seems too caught up in kissing to take notice, which means that when Dean is ready, Cas is anything but. Dean sits up over Cas’ hips, takes Cas’ cock in hand, and then sinks onto it before he can come up with any reason not to.

“Dean— _gods_.” Cas moans, then quickly devolves into a string of gibberish in another language, one which Dean either doesn’t recognize, or is too far gone in his own bliss to decipher. Not that he cares either way; the blunt pressure of Cas inside of him is almost too much for Dean to handle, perfectly clears his mind of nearly everything.

It gets even better when Dean starts to move, rocking in place and rolling his hips. Cas grabs him by the waist to guide him along, until that stops being enough and he sits up to hold Dean closer, arms encircling him completely. There’s a part of Dean that feels constricted by the contact, smothered, but he knows if he pushes away he’s going to have to talk, and since that’s the absolute last thing he wants to do right now, he forces himself to let it go.

There’s another part of him that adores the extra support, after all.

Positioned over Cas as he is, Dean is in complete control, and therefore gets to set the pace. He goes hard, already relishing the ache that he knows he’s going to have from it in the morning. It’s been a while since he last felt that particular ache, and that’s what’s going to keep him grounded, he already knows. He’ll need the twinge of discomfort to keep him remembering that this happened. That his life went to shit all around him and he lost everything he thought he had.

That last thought drives him onward, and he fucks himself back even faster on Cas’ cock. Cas, oblivious to the mess in Dean’s head, reciprocates eagerly, and touches him like a lover would, with gentle hands and kisses peppered across his skin.

It’s a disparity Dean sets out to ignore. He doesn’t need to add to his heartbreak.

Thankfully, even if he feels like he’s on the brink of a meltdown—or maybe on the brink of crying, because he’s man enough to admit he’s already having a meltdown and is acting it out in the worst possible way—pleasure is pleasure, and his body responds to it accordingly. His orgasm catches him by surprise, but although he stifles a groan when he comes, Cas moans like it’s the most wonderful thing. The genie grinds his hips up, drags his fingertips through Dean’s release, and then follows him over the brink with a punched-out gasp.

For a moment, they’re both still. The only sound is their ragged breathing, the only movement is the heaving of their chests.

Cas stares up at Dean, dazed but satisfied. The awe still plain on his face would be better off directed toward a deity than someone like Dean.

Because truth be told, he deserves a hell of a lot better than the fuckup Dean is.

Dean slips off of Cas and shifts to sit on the edge of the bed. Normally, he likes to bask in mutual, post-coital bliss, but right now, his high is fading even faster than it arrived.

Cas deserves better, and Dean deserves so much less. If he couldn’t be what Lisa needed, couldn’t save the best relationship he’s ever had, couldn’t even love her right—why the hell should he get to have anything with Cas?

Dean digs his fingernails into his thighs in an attempt to steady himself, his eyes fixed on nothing.

The bed shifts when Cas moves. Dean can tell that the genie reaches out, the heat of his palm hovering over Dean’s shoulder, but the touch never comes. “Dean?”

“Leave, Cas.”

The silence on the other side of the bed is practically palpable.

Then, “Did I do something wrong?”

Dean winces. _No. Of course not. That’s not your role._

“I said, _leave_. Go. Get out.”

“Dean, I don’t understand—”

Dean grits his teeth, an irrational anger bubbling through him. His chest aches, there’s too much going on in his head, he doesn’t know what he thinks, doesn’t even know how to figure out what he _feels_. Lisa’s words suddenly resurface in his mind and burn through him anew.

_I can’t keep being selfish_.

He screws his eyes shut and interrupts, “I wish you would go back to your lamp.”

Cas gasps, though the sound punches out of him in a way that’s more like a sob than anything else.

Dean clenches his jaw, but even that can’t stop him from flinching. He can hear Cas’ breathing behind him, labored now, then the rustling of the sheets as the genie turns. That distinctive heat hovers over his bare shoulder again and Dean tenses in anticipation of a touch. He’s partially expecting Cas to turn him around, demand an explanation, an apology, a rescinding of the wish. To shout at him until he’s thinking straight again. _Anything_.

Cas snaps his fingers.

Somehow, the sound manages to make it feel like Dean’s heart has been torn clean from his chest even more so than the sound of the door closing behind Lisa had.

Dean’s limbs feel like lead as he turns, his fingers clenching in the sheets twisted around his waist in a vain attempt to hold himself steady. The sight of an empty bed has tears springing to his eyes, and it feels like a hot iron has been shoved through the center of his chest. It’s like Cas was never even there.

Dean stops resisting, then.

He breaks down and cries.

 

 

Once he starts crying, it’s difficult to stop. Crying isn’t something he often allows himself to do, after all. Winchesters don’t cry. His father was always resolute about that.

He’s realizing that the long-standing _no crying_ rule probably stems from the fact that Winchesters are ugly criers. Red, blotchy face, runny nose, hiccupping breaths—there’s no part of it that’s attractive. Add in the fact that it continues for hours, too, and then comes back at every tiny trigger imaginable every time Dean thinks it might finally be passing, and it’s actual Hell.

Not that his ugly crying impacts anything, of course. He’s miserable by no one’s fault but his own, and he hardly has the motivation to get off his couch, let alone leave his apartment.

Dual heartbreak isn’t an easy thing to cope with.

If it can even be considered _dual_ in the first place, that is, because while losing Lisa hurt, he earned it. He’d _deserved_ that, for being a shitty boyfriend, and for failing her in all the ways that he did. He’s had other relationships come to an end, though, plenty of them, so no matter how much he might have wanted that one in particular to stick, he knows from experience that he’s capable of getting over even a particularly painful dumping.

But Cas.

The sound the genie had made when Dean wished for him to leave is stuck in his mind, playing over and over again on a loop. It’s like rubbing salt in the wound, and doesn’t much help his perpetually-crying state.

All Cas had done was want Dean; he didn’t deserve to be used and discarded, not so heartlessly. He didn’t deserve to have Dean be cruel to him.

Cas’ lamp sits on Dean’s coffee table, a neon-blue taunt Dean can’t ignore. When the guilt of what he’d done first hit him, Dean had tried to get him back, had clawed at the bottle’s cork until his fingernails splintered. He’d tried everything short of breaking the glass, because that was the one step he didn’t dare to take, but in the end, he had nothing to show for it.

Turns out that the lore is right in suggesting that genies are a one-time-use sort of thing.

It hurts like hell.

But Dean had said the words. He’d wished for Cas to go, gotten rid of him and used his last with in a single breath, and the genie did just that.

What else had Dean expected to happen?

Regardless of how self-inflicted his own misery is, though, and regardless of how much he deserves to suffer for being the waste of space that he is…

He needs to talk to Cas.

He needs to apologize.

And since he can’t summon the genie again, he needs to bring in someone who can.

The solution hits him in the middle of the night, the day following his final wish. That said, after all the time he’s spent agonizing over his mistakes, he _might_ have forgotten that time still holds meaning to some people.

Thankfully, Sam is a forgiving brother.

Less forgiving for being called up at the witching hour and subjected to what Dean is sure is incoherent rambling, but, well. He’s forgiving enough.

Meaning, Sam grumbles in response, “I’ll be there to sort your shit out in the morning. If I don’t strangle you on sight.”

Which is fair, quite honestly. A three am call asking for help opening a bottle might warrant a strangling.

Waiting until morning has the upside of forcing Dean to sleep, too. It’s only for a few hours, and he tosses and turns through most of it—the couch is not nearly as comfortable as his mattress, but he can’t bear to look at the still-rumpled sheets on his bed, so he’s forced to make do—but sleep is sleep. By the time Sam actually shows up the next morning, bitch-face at the ready, Dean is prepared to handle it.

He starts, of course, with an explanation.

It doesn’t come easily, but considering how hefty the story is, that’s not really a surprise. He has to start with his drama with Lisa and work from there, covering his job in Visyak’s storage locker and everything that has happened since. He digs his research back up so that he can prove he did his due diligence and even sketches out a few frantic recreations of Cas’ tattoos—easily done, considering those, too, are scorched into his retinas. Just like the rest of Cas.

All in all, it’s a lot to swallow. Dean knows that. He tells Sam as much. But that doesn’t stop him from asking.

“Sam, please. You have to do this. For me.”

Sam’s expression pinches, like he still isn’t quite convinced. He stares at the bottle when Dean guides him to it, eyes tracking the pulsing of the blue light within. It’s synced to Sam’s breathing, now, not Dean’s. Luring in the next potential master of the lamp. Dean hates it.

He takes a shaking breath and adds on, ignoring the way his voice cracks halfway through, “I need him back, Sam.”

There’s a beat of silence. Sam sighs, rubs his hands over his face, then pushes up to his feet. He snags Cas’ bottle as he goes, holding it between his fingertips like it may shatter if he’s not careful.

“Sammy—”

“So what do I have to do, then? Just pull the cork out?”

Dean’s jaw snaps shut with an audible _click_. By some miracle, he manages to get his brain to communicate with his body enough to nod in answer.

This time, when Cas’ bottle is opened, there’s no explosion of energy or breaking of glass. Instead, as soon as Sam has pulled the cork free, Cas’ essence swirls out in a graceful arc, blindingly bright and breathtakingly beautiful. The sight draws Dean to his feet, and he reaches his full height just as Cas materializes into human form. His magic lights up his eyes, shines along the lines of his tattoos, makes the silver around his wrists gleam.

 

 

It’s only been a day since Dean has seen him, but seeing him again now sends relief coursing through Dean with so much strength, his knees feel weak. It hits him like a kick to the chest, and he can hardly _breathe_.

How did he not recognize this feeling sooner?

On the surface, Cas looks just as good as ever, all wild hair and low-hanging pants and warm, soft skin—but Dean knows him too well by this point to not see beyond that. Cas’ hair might be wild, but it’s also duller than Dean has ever seen it. There are bags under his eyes, his shoulders are slumped, and even when he pulls himself up and raises his eyes to Sam’s, he’s missing the spark that he had when he first appeared to Dean.

Dean’s fault. In every way.

It clearly takes a moment for Cas to become completely aware of his surroundings, because even though he looks up at Sam, the new master of the lamp, a few beats pass before he truly reacts. He’s never met Sam, doesn’t know him on sight, but either he’s seen enough pictures of the younger Winchester scattered around Dean’s apartment, or the setting itself gives the situation away, because recognition quickly sets in. Cas’ muscles lock up and his eyes flit around the apartment. His gaze only makes it partway toward Dean before he goes completely still, however, his peripheral enough to stall him in place.

His eyes make a swift return to Sam.

“You have three wishes,” Cas says, clipped and mechanical and just a touch too quickly. He knows this isn’t about Sam. “Your wishes must adhere to the rules.”

Dean takes a step forward, nearly putting himself between Cas and Sam. “Cas, can we talk?”

Without so much as looking at Dean, Cas neatly sidesteps him, eyes remaining fixed on Sam and face carefully devoid of any telling emotions. He starts listing out the same terms that he gave Dean. “You may not wish for the death of any living person or thing—”

Dean clenches his jaw. _Not happening_. “Acting like you can’t see me isn’t going to get rid of me. Just hear me out.”

Cas tilts his chin up by a few degrees, as defiant as could only have been expected. “You may not wish for the life of any un-living person or thing, you may not wish for—”

“Cas, please, I—”

“ _Enough_ , Dean!” When Cas finally snaps, he does so with a vengeance, whirling on the ball of his foot to face Dean with a snarl ready on his lips. His eyes are bright with magic, electric blue sparking through his irises while the excess leaks from the corners of his eyes like tears.

But no, Dean realizes with a jolt, they’re not _like_ tears.

They _are_ tears.

All of the air leaves his lungs in a rush.

“Cas…” He raises his hand toward Cas’ face, maybe to cup the genie’s cheek, maybe to wipe away his tears—but he doesn’t actually get to find out what he might have done, because Cas catches his wrist in a crushing grip as soon as he even gets close.

“No,” Cas says. His lower lip trembles, just slightly. “You had your chance. You made your choice. I don’t have to listen to you after what you did.”

Dean winces. He earned that, though; he can’t deny that.

Cas turns back to Sam who, for his part, looks for all the world like he’d rather be anywhere else. Not that Dean can blame him for that, of course. Cas’ glare is deadly, and not even the new master of the lamp seems excluded from it. Guilty by association, probably.

“You cannot wish for the death of any living person or thing,” the genie restarts, “and you cannot wish for the life of any nonliving person or thing. You may not wish for love—”

Dean sees his chance and he takes it.

“I already love you.”

Even though he can only see Cas’ profile, Dean doesn’t miss the way Cas practically short-circuits. The genie blinks once, twice, then slowly turns toward Dean.

“You… what?”

Dean takes a deep breath to steel himself, then steps up into Cas’ personal space. When the genie doesn’t push him away, Dean cups his cheeks, holding him steady and ensuring that he truly listens.

“I love you,” he says again, voice thick with emotion. “It took me too damn long to realize, but I do. I love that you hate clothes unless they’re soft, I love your stupid, dry sense of humor, I love how enthusiastic you get about the dumbest stuff, like my work, and I love the way you _look at me_ , for Christ’s sake.”

Cas’ throat clicks when he swallows. “Dean, if this is some kind of humorous situation to you…”

Dean shakes his head. “It’s not. Jesus, Cas, it’s not funny at all. Just because I was a dumbass and ended up being a bit slow on the uptake doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

Cas sucks in a breath, looking almost pained. His expression has Dean’s heartrate climbing, because if he misread this, if Cas hasn’t actually been pining over him this whole time like Dean thought—

“I feel the same,” Cas says, and Dean sags with relief.

Cas’ hands come up to hold him in return, and Dean is grateful for the additional support as the genie continues to speak. “I have loved you since the first moment I realized how pure your heart is. Limitless wishes from a genie, and you use your first wishes on an effort to bring your girlfriend happiness. I may not have liked it, for my own, selfish reasons, but that shows just how _good_ you are, Dean. No one has ever used the wishes I have granted for anything but purely selfish means. There are many other reasons why I love you as well, but that one is the most important.”

A tear rolls down Dean’s cheek, which Cas is quick to swipe away with the pad of his thumb. “Cas, I’m so sorry. What I did was so goddamn cruel, I didn’t mean to—”

“Shh, Dean. I know.”

There's a beat of silence, and Dean almost forgets Sam is even in the room. He starts to lean in, wanting to kiss Cas for real this time, without an ulterior motive, but Sam clearing his throat behind him makes him freeze.

“Not that I don't like seeing my brother bare his soul right in front of me,” Sam starts, “but uh… I still get my wishes, right?”

Dean twists his expression into what he hopes conveys his sudden murderous intent, but Sam doesn't waver. “ _Sam._ ”

Cas, on the other hand, doesn't seem to care about the interruption of their moment. “Of course,” he confirms, glancing away from Dean, “as long as they stay within the boundaries of the rules.”

“Cas!”

“There is a _contract_ , Dean, I have to abide by it. You’re the one who asked your brother to summon me; you summoned me in the past, you should have known what it would entail.”  

“I had Sam summon you because _I_ couldn’t, dumbass, not because I give a damn about his wishes.”

“Hey!”

Dean turns a glare on his brother. “You know, Sammy, if it weren’t for you, we’d be having a _moment_ right now. You mind?”

Sam throws his hands up in a gesture of exasperation. “You called me in the middle of the night to get me here, jerk, I think the least you can do is let me have some literal wish fulfillment from your genie boyfriend as payment.”

Dean opens his mouth to object on principle alone, then snaps his jaw shut again. Unfortunately, his brother has a point.

But if Sam uses his wishes…

He glances at Cas, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth as he does. “What happens if he makes those wishes?”

Cas’ smile, a permanent feature since their mutual confessions, fades. He glances from Dean to Sam then back again, then slowly draws himself out of Dean’s hold to put some space between them.

“Sam,” he says, “I am at your disposal, as you are the master of the lamp. And I am certainly in no place to dictate how your wishes are spent, beyond the limitations of imposing the rules, but…”

Dean sighs. “Spit it out, Cas.”

Cas silences him with a glare before returning his attention to Sam. “ _But_ , if you could find it in your heart to grant me the use of your last wish…”

“Oh.” Sam folds his arms across his chest, his eyebrows raised. “Is this where my last wish is for you to be free?”

Cas wets his lips.

“Something like that.”

 

 

It takes a while for Sam to decide on his wishes. Too long, really, but that’s mostly because he knows his audience is antsy, and he’s the kind of bastard who loves making people (read: _Dean_ ) miserable. He deliberates over plenty of dumb things he can wish for—infinite knowledge, a stack of cash, a Dodge Charger like he had for a rental car ‘that one time’—but eventually comes up with two good, genuine wishes.

Sure, Dean and Cas both have to beg and plead with him to get to that point, because _for the love of god, Sam, please_ , but they do get there, and that’s what matters.

His first wish is for a one-of-a-kind wedding ring for his fiancée. It’s cute and sappy and something that Eileen is going to absolutely love, since it looks just like her late mother’s ring.

His second wish is for a house. He says it with a shrug, and doesn’t go into nearly as much detail as Dean had, but he doesn’t seem too worried about the details. A house is a house, and is infinitely better than the condo he’s currently in.

His third wish, Cas whispers into his ear. Sam’s eyes go wide when he hears whatever it is, and for the first time since the wishing started, Dean is nervous.

“You’re sure about this?” Sam asks when Cas steps away. He eyes the genie warily. “I have a feeling this is something I can’t really undo.”

Cas nods. “Trust me, Sam.”

Although he still looks a bit reluctant, Sam visibly resigns himself to Cas’ decision. “If you say so.” He squares himself up, sneaks a quick glance at Dean, then says, suppressing a smile, “Castiel, I wish you would become human.”

Dean sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth.

Cas snaps his fingers.

The swell of magic which follows is not unlike the one that followed Sam’s opening of the bottle, but this time, the bright blue light emanates from Cas’ physical body. It spirals out of his chest in long, whispering tendrils, and leaks out of the corners of his eyes. As the light moves, the tattoo on Cas’ chest dissipates like it was sand in the wind, scattering away to nothingness. At his wrists, the light coils up and crackles like lightning, racing around and around the cuffs until both Dean and Sam have to look away from how blinding it becomes.

There’s a crack of thunder outside. The brightness swells, Cas gasps—and then it’s over. Dean blinks against the dark spots left in his vision from the magic, but once his eyes land on Cas, he knows without a doubt that it worked.

Cas looks exactly the same, but at the same time, he looks so incredibly different.

Because as he stands there, touching his blank chest and his bare wrists in awe, Cas looks _happy_.

Dean doesn’t hesitate to close the distance between them kiss that happiness, needing to taste it for himself. He might be imagining things when he tells himself that Cas feels cooler, less inhumanly warm than he had been previously, but once Cas starts kissing him back, Dean knows it doesn’t make a difference to anything.

Despite almost losing him, he has Cas back, and he has Cas to stay. There isn’t a damn thing that could possibly matter, next to that.

When their lips finally part, Cas pants against Dean’s skin, out of breath. It’s so normal and endearing that Dean’s heart aches with the overdose of adoration that hits him.

“You know,” he says, huddling in as close to Cas as he physically can, “I have this great house that I think you might like. I’m looking for someone to share it with. Think you could put up with me?”

Cas flashes him a wide, gummy smile, and presses a quick kiss to Dean’s lips.

“I would love nothing more.”

**Author's Note:**

> (Sam's house is across the street from Dean and Cas', Eileen and Cas become best friends, and everyone lives happily ever after. <3 )
> 
> Find me on tumblr [here](http://thursdays-fallen-angel.tumblr.com/)


End file.
